绝对权力- Absolute Power

[wushijiao]

Recently I finished watching the TV series 绝对权力, which came out a few years ago and is based on the novel of the same name by 周梅森. The TV series portrays the lives of some characters who live in the fictional Chinese city of 8 million 镜洲市 (Jingzhou City). The main politicians are 齐全盛书记 and 赵芬芳市长. It is found out that the city has a serious corruption problem, and so the provincial Party standing committee sends a delegation to investigate, headed up by 刘重天, a guy who used to be the mayor of Jingzhou, and is an enemy of 齐全盛书记. As the plot moves on, there is a bigger and bigger web of corruption that touches nearly everyone. The viewer is left to decide who is clean, and who is corrupt, and if corrupt, to what degree do they hold personal responsibility, and from whom do they take orders.

All in all, I’d highly recommend this series because:

1) It pushes the limits of showing what is wrong with the system

2) The acting is superb, especially from齐全盛书记 (唐国强) and 赵芬芳市长 (斯琴高娃). A lot of the minor characters were also casted well, I thought.

3) Even though many of the scenes are extremely exaggerated for the sake of creating drama, it does give you an idea about the complexities of the Chinese political system, and how difficult it is to change it.

4) It is addictive!, especially after the first five or six episodes, which are a bit dry. I watched almost 13 episodes in the last two days to get to find out what happened!

5) The show is only 27 episodes. Not too long.

The main flaws of the TV series are:

1) The soundtrack to the show. The music is pretty bad (especially after watching just watching a ton of West Wing).

2) The repetition. In order to not confuse people who are watching the show for the first time on, say, episode 17, they usually create some awkward scenes in the beginning of each episode to review who is who, and what is happening. That’s fine if you are watching one episode per night, but annoying if you are watching five in one day. (The good news is, if you don’t catch all the details: no worries! They will review them again and again. So, to some degree, that makes this good from a CSL point of view).

Anyway, as long as you like politics or current events, the positives outweigh the negatives.

Here is a picture of the cover:

http://auction1.taobao.com/auction/0/item_detail-0db1-91715719fc4884f1e4c2dca0f47da70d.jhtml

If you are in China, it shouldn't be too hard to find this at some DVD store.

[skylee]

If you are talking about "power" instead of "rights" I suppose it should be 權力 instead of 權利, right?

[wushijiao]

Thanks skylee. I just presses the first one that came up!