Entertainment

For anyone who doesn't know, there's a Chinese Tencent adaptation (wikipedia) which originally aired January 2023, is not the same as the Netflix adaptation which is not yet released.

The Tencent adaptation is 30 episodes and currently available in full ~~in 1080p~~ in 4K! with english subtitles from Tencent on their yt page:

• Youtube link as shared by misericordiae above https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMX26aiIvX5oCR4bBg2j0W4KKgjYtYBfv
• Invidious link https://y.com.sb/search?q=PLMX26aiIvX5oCR4bBg2j0W4KKgjYtYBfv

I'm about halfway through the Tencent adaptation and I think its accurate to the source material and accurately capturing the mood well, however:

• The detective, Shi Qiang, is now a buddy cop guy used mainly for exposition which is lazy writing, in my opinion. Or was he always like this?
• The pacing is really slow which sometimes works really well and other times drags out scenes with no benefit. I'd say this could have been compressed into 22 episodes without losing any content or creating pacing issues while still leaving plenty of time for scenes that were meaningfully slow. Just needs an editor to cut it down a bit. Oh well!

I think I only recommend it if you're a fan of the book because its not disappointing from that perspective really, but maybe the Netflix version will be comparably faithful while being structured a bit differently or having better storytelling. I look forward to comparing them.

Sweet I've not sailed the seas for a long time so I hadnt bothered trying to look it up nor did I expect it to just be on YouTube so thanks!