Ralf Jonathan Ritter 李祖良

Everything I initially wrote I still believe, but my overall opinion has changed! It is great entertainment and storytelling. The M5I/MI6/CIA take is entirely possible. The Chinese family dimension is very credible (especially in an Overseas Chinese context), the exterior of the U.S. Embassy in London is correct. I was very pleased with the plot development. What seemed to start out as highly anti-China was completely turned on its head. This is an addendum to my original review which I still believe to be right on facts. But the acting and plot are superb. Btw, a "red eye" flight usually is an overnight flight in the U.S., e.g. Coast to Coast or flights outside the contiguous United States, also at night. This in response to someone else's question. Below my original review: QUOTE Entertaining, with slight aspects of "AND THEN THERE WERE THREE" and "RED CORNER" (Jon Avnet, Director with Richard Gere, Bai Lin, Byron Mann and the brilliant Tsai Chin). 1. Captain with long hair tied in a bun (not on a PRC airline), 2. "white privilege" (does not exist in mainland), 3. Captain to first officer "drive a school bus in Mongolia" (they must mean Inner Mongolia, i.e. :Nei Meng Gu), 3.car racing out of BJ in less than 2 minutes ending up on a country road (even with less than normal traffic, this would take a LOT longer), 4. flying time (assuming LHR-PEK) "10 hours" (in the Easterly direction this would be more like 11 hrs and 15 mins), 5. Li is spelled Li, but Yi is spelled ("Yee") -- this is a catastrophic mix of Pinyin and Wade-Giles, Shen Zhao is obviously not native Chinese, 6.Actor names are a mix and match of Cantonese and Mandarin. Question marks: 1. WhatsApp on a mailand carrier?, 2. Heilong Club scene remarkably similar to Red Corner beginning, 3. General's daughter (Red Corner). Good catch: car is driven on the correct side of the road Remarks: some reviews said that actors cannot speak Chinese. This is not exactly true: Yun Xi (Tai Yin Chan speaks very well), but his name is inconsistent (mixing Mandarin and Cantonese, "Chan" would be "Chen"), Wu (Aidan Cheng) speaks at least tolerably well, among others. It's very rare for Western/other foreign visitors to mainland to drive a car there.That's usually only true for long-term residents. This is conceptually a Western concept (I cannot speak to British habits). "Waking up, missing organs" is based on rumors that have not been substantiated. The poisoning of people is generally more reminiscent of another regime. It's not as bad as all that. The acting is generally good, especially among some Cockpit and Cabin crew. Had it not been for the inaccuracies I would have rated this as a 5 because it's obviously a far-fetched but exciting plot. This writing as of the start of Episode 3. I won't bother remembering stuff for the rest. I like it! Qualifications for this review: majored in Chinese in college, lived in PRC for 12 years, married to a Chinese, profile avatar notwithstanding.