Two domestic dramas – one in Singapore and one in Japan – show relationships under stress.

By Foong Woei Wan

In 2011 Taiwanese hit In Time With You, Singaporean actor Romeo Tan had only a few seconds to make an impression and he did.

It was a small scene that wouldn’t have been as cute with a less adept actor.

On Channel 8, where his star is rising, Tan has inhabited supporting role with ease. Now making his debut as a leading man in Sudden, he is assured and restrained as a lawyer who is picking up the pieces after a road accident leaves him in a wheelchair.

But he is powerless to overcome the drama, which is more surface shine than substance.

Formally ambitious, the story zigzags back and forth in time in early episodes and provides an extensive view of the accident from the standpoints of a handful of characters: the lawyer (Tan) who is hanging upside down with his dying key witness in his overturned car; his panicking girlfriend (Rui En) who was following him in her car after he received a death threat; and a fledgling lawyer (Zhang Zhenhuan) who helps the witness call his daughter (Rebecca Lim) and misses a job interview.

Tan and Rui En’s lawyer characters break up after the accident but she lingers in his house and likewise, the drama doesn’t give up hope of getting them back together.

Many episodes begin and end with flashbacks to their courtship in Tasmania, which are meant to shed some light on their stalemate now. But they don’t.

Conversations in the past and the present, in picturesque Australia and boutique Singapore, tend to echo each other in a way that is more repetitive than revealing. However meaningfully Tan and Rui En smile, there is a limit to the profundity they can give a postcard-thick story.

It’s all quite pretty, though.

Verdict: 2.5/5

Sudden 骤变 is now airing on Channel 8, Weekdays at 9pm.

Source: The Straits Times

Categorised in EN, Sudden 骤变, The Straits Times.