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Mainland Chinese TV drama sparks talk of ‘Taiwan spies’



On the first day of 2022, the finale of the 37-episode mainland Chinese spy thriller Enemy (《对手》) aired on CCTV. There was not a lot of publicity for this series before it premiered, but it won much acclaim and countless fans after it went on air, and the fate of the “Taiwan spy couple” became a hot topic.To get more latest entertainment news, you can visit shine news official website.

Over the years, mainland China has filmed quite a number of spy shows, many of which are well-produced, including Lurk (《潜伏》) starring Sun Honglei, Plot Against (《暗算》) starring Liu Yunlong, and The Message (《风声》) starring Zhang Hanyu and Zhou Xun. These dramas are set mostly during the Kuomintang/Chinese Communist Party (KMT/CCP) civil war, the war against the Japanese, or the early period of nation-building by the CCP, showing the battle of wits and dare between CCP agents and the KMT or the occupying Japanese forces.

But Enemy is not only set in modern times, but the leads are “Taiwan spies” in mainland China, with the show’s premise about their dealings with mainland national security personnel.
While Enemy unsurprisingly ends with mainland national security defeating the Taiwan spies, the perspective, plot and acting were refreshing, while the travails of the spy couple Li Tang and Ding Meixi — played by Guo Jingfei and Tan Zhuo — elicited pity and sympathy. It is no exaggeration to say that this show brought mainland spy dramas to a new level.

Spies or average Joes?
In the show, after a failed attempt by the young spies Li Tang and Ding Meixi to kidnap a missile expert in mainland China, they are ordered to go undercover as a married couple in Xiamen (called Xiazhou in the show). Eighteen years later, the former young hotshots have become an ordinary, cash-strapped, middle-aged couple, who are constantly quibbling over everyday matters, fretting about their daughter who is going through a rebellious phase, and worrying about their pension.

Cabbie Li and secondary school teacher Ding are just barely getting by; they often do not get money for their activities and have to go out of pocket for their missions. When Li is running a fever, he does not go to the hospital fearing the expense, and ends up complaining that being a spy is worse than playing the stock market, as he cannot even unload shares to cut losses. Tempted by the 500,000 RMB reward offered by mainland China for reporting spies, Li even thinks about reporting himself and leaving the reward money to his child.

Under life’s pressures, Ding constantly grumbles that their superiors are delaying payments, property prices are going up again, and she can only use cheap local China makeup brands with hanyu pinyin names. When her superiors get her to use her seductive skills to obtain classified materials, she says without any money to dress up, no one would take the bait.
As for Li, each time he meets his superiors, he is most interested in when their payment is coming in and whether they can get more, but the superiors either change the subject or fob him off by saying that the money is on the way.
To earn more money, Ding is influenced into putting their savings in high-return investments, only for the P2P situation to explode and for them to get cheated of their money. Ding and Li only get their money back through using their spy skills.

Duan Yingjiu, the head of operations at the Xiazhou national security agency, is a workaholic, but her life is also a mess: she has never cooked, and does not know her son is being bullied by hooligans; her marriage is all but dead as her husband complains that she does not take care of the family, and insists on a divorce; her child wants to study overseas, and she starts getting anxious about approaching her brother to claim back the money he borrowed.

Nonetheless, there were a few plot points that were off. For example, the spy agency tried all ways to hunt down and assassinate Li and his wife, and also hurt their daughter, which seems unrealistic and unreasonable. During the finale, Li was also made to praise the national security personnel as having a “noble heart”, which seemed phony.