#under the skin 2

[da-man-si]

Shen Yi + Du Cheng + their Shen Yi's cat, Xiaoxuan = Family

[qpjianghu]

Under the Skin 2 (2024) // Guardian (2018)

well, mark me down as scared and horny angry

[ellsieee]

People are just assuming Du Cheng and Shen Yi are a couple now.

They did not refute it.

Only gay panic.

[superwholockian93]

Shen Yi doesn't have to lift his fingers. He just has to call out his name and Mr. 192 cm plus here is carrying it

Even when Shen Yi does raise his hand

He still gently puts it by his feet. All of this after transporting Shen Yi's bike on his car rack instead of letting Shen Yi bike back to his home like?

[dodginglife]

Attention everyone the fanfics are coming to life.

This is what I want to see daily thank you.

[lunarriviera]

under the skin meta: The Monologue™ (part 1)

[spoilers for s2 in general and ep 20 in specific��which, trust me, you really don't want to watch out of order. it's worth waiting for this one.]

if you’ve seen The Monologue, you understand. this is why tan jianci fans are somewhere on a spectrum from chronically bitter to unendingly distraught about never not yet getting to see him play gu yun in sha po lang/winner is king. if uts were a north american prestige drama, tjc would have just handily won an emmy. as it is he’ll probably just be in a bunch of romcoms and do more goofy stuff on hi6, and that’s fine too. i guess we’ll always have “wet the bed.”

where was i oh right The Monologue. this will be long but it’s possibly the most glorious moment in this entire drama so here we go.

to build up to it, tho, we need backstory: namely, season two's gradual unraveling of shen yi. we know he can’t sleep well and has ghastly nightmares about a little girl he didn’t save, mostly because he didn’t consciously know she was in any danger. in her red dress, like the little girl in schindler’s list, she stands out, tragic amidst the desaturation, and shen yi makes a variety of horrified faces about having failed her. (horrified faces seem to be his main ones this season, which is partly what makes The Monologue so exciting.)

anyway shen yi has already been pretty thoroughly harrowed by this particular case as it is, having been the one to figure out (of course) the serial murderer’s ritualistic pattern and motive. shen yi turns his most Horrified Face to du cheng to warn him that the next victim's in danger, and they have this exchange, which will be important later.

(what du cheng says is 别担心, which also gets translated as "rest assured"—like, don't let your heart be uneasy. i got this.)

so du cheng takes off to save the victim, and shen yi goes back to his office to do…actually, what does he think he’s going to do? some paperwork, a little light filing, maybe sharpen some pencils? instead he predictably goes into a glass-shattering fugue state, and imagines the little girl. this begins the monologue scene, even though it all takes place in shen yi’s head. pls indulge me by watching it again, bc i assume you’ve already seen it anyway, and my god it’s such a gorgeous piece of face journey that ALSO sets up what’s to follow.

in some ways this compressed little piece is even better than what comes after. the way he FLIES to her and FALLS to his knees, just rushes up to her stammering and devastated and PROMISING he'll save her this time. honestly it destroyed me, i watched it like 5 times in a row before i could even move on. the unheld-back generosity of this brief performance, the way he’s completely focused on her and then just FALLS APART, it snapped my heart like a carrot stick.

me, a fangirl: SHEN YI SHEN YI NO BB NO PLS SOMEONE HELP HIM me, film nerd: huh fascinating never seen an actor's lips shake before

so now he understands what he needs to do. what he MUST do. having had this revelation, shen yi shows up at the killer’s door, creepy-smiling at him and barging inside. and then he delivers The Monologue, ten solid nearly-uncut minutes of sheer batshit insanity.

shen yi rants. he raves. he paces and pivots and gestures, he thinks aloud, he surmises and expostulates and revises and reverses and exclaims and delivers each conclusion with rabid glee. he scowls and shouts and is sinister and grins and is just one thousand fucking percent unhinged.

we have never, ever seen shen yi like this before, and thank god, because he would scare people on the regular, and he’s scary enough as it is. why do you think he wears all those baggy pastels and smiles so sweetly. why do you think he tries to pass as an unassuming twink, it’s because if people knew what was really going on inside his head half the time, they’d be screaming crying passing out. (tho the beauty of shen yi is: he also really is just an unassuming twink.)

anyway there i was, like a bonehead, stupidly trying to screenrecord this scene before i realized it would be like fifty gig of fire emoji, and then my hands fell limply at my sides, bc it dawned on me what was actually happening. sort of like that moment in “free churro” when you realize bojack horseman really is going to keep giving this heartbreaking eulogy for the length of the entire episode.

because The Monologue is virtuoso. it's tour de force. this is the kind of thing they play at the oscars during your "in memoriam" clip reel. this is what undergrads copy for their audition pieces. this is some heath ledger shit. it's jack nicholson in the shining, al pacino in scarface. this is about one inch away from brando.

as a result of all this, shen yi has the serial killer (whose name is ge yutian by the way) eating out of his goddamn hand within like half a minute, absolutely spellbound—which is the entire point. if shen yi doesn’t convince him, all of this glorious sorcery is for nothing.

(the guy who plays ge yutian is good too, a perfect scene partner for this. he picks up every cue and lets tjc have all the room he needs.)

just a few more notes on the performance, both tjc's and shen yi's:

1. where it really goes off the rails is when shen yi shrieks, DAMN POLICE! and ge yutian JUMPS in alarm. this not only made me laugh (him being so bonkers that he actually frightens a serial murderer!) but is also the moment when The Monologue stops being "aw haha such a fun thing for an actor to get to do" and “…jesus christ what the fuck am i watching." look how i couldn't even get a non-potato screencap. it's from this point on that shen yi is possessed.

2. because he has to show that he identifies with ge yutian, that the killer can and should trust him because they think alike. but that’s just the old “FBI profiler eventually becomes his prey” cliché, so there’s more to it. he also has to convince ge yutian that his ideas, shen yi's, are ge yutian's ideas, from the inside out—and therefore he's the right candidate for the sheng role. and finally, that it's precisely his ability to act, to be a strong performer, that makes him the right choice. that it’s shen yi who’s most suitable, thanks to his convincing mimesis of ge yutian’s highly suspect “thought process."

3. to really pull this off, even as shen yi builds him up (cf. ge yutian clapping enthusiastically, enthralled by this flattering vision), he also has to tear him down. so he plays two roles at once: ge yutian and an unknown theatre critic—who’s also shen yi, because he’s still the righteous officer of the People’s Police, here to inform ge yutian that his vision is sick and twisted, and not anything his gentle-hearted lover would have wanted, not her way of being in the world.

4. finally i would argue that shen yi's admittedly shaky s2 state here suddenly seems a lot more bolted-on. a few viewers have worriedly described The Monologue almost as some kind of psychotic break but honestly i read it as so very controlled and so very deliberate. while he’s desperate (must save victim this time. must not fuck it up again.) he’s not deranged. he absolutely knows what he’s doing.

i'm sorry to say part 2 will follow. but to conclude for now:

• actors are witches. • 16:9 can no longer contain tjc’s talent this man needs 1.85:1 • you hardly ever get to see someone just NAIL IT TO THE WALL like this, what a time to be alive • (and these were long takes too. there wasn't that much editing. that was all him. and you can see three uncut minutes of it here) • pls watch under the skin for some unexpectedly fine acting as well as ofc crime drama, ensemble comedy, weird art historical facts, and captain du cheng (jin shijia), who alternates between being a giant goofball and an aloof occasionally scary badass. also they’re in love.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Under the Skin’s Precinct Guide to Crime-Solving (seasons 1 and 2)

1.) Oh, there’s been a murder? With no clues to who did it? Is there a sapphic-coded/horribly-mistreated woman in the vicinity of the crime?

GOT ‘EM.

2.) No need for a professional interrogator to deal with criminals, this one guy we hired to draw people can do that now, and he presents them with sympathetically rendered portraits! Nice, right? Every precinct needs their little thing, ours is art therapy for people who commit symbolic and overly complicated crimes. No, Shen Yi doesn’t *actually* have a psychology degree, but he does have a sketchpad and a lot of trauma, and we feel like that’s probably enough.

3.) It’s fine and normal for our captain to chauffeur the precinct’s sketch artist around town while he naps, gaze longingly at him while he draws, and buy him expensive, personalized gifts. They call it partners for a reason, right?

4.) Look. Is Director Zhang underappreciated? Yes! BUT is she underpaid for the crap she deals with? Also yes!

5.) If the station had a nickel for every time Shen Yi got abducted/held hostage, we’d have like five nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it keeps happening??

6.) Jiang Feng used to be Du Cheng’s partner and an authority figure, but now he mostly brings snacks, simps for Li Han, does workout livestreams, and maybe sometimes gets to arrest people. We love that for him.

7.) Our precinct is allowed to have two (2) staff people over the age of forty. Both must be minor characters, and they’re the only ones who regularly wear their actual uniforms (except Yan also gets a lil tracksuit)

8.) Our crime-solving techniques involve questioning suspects and witnesses, analyzing surveillance footage, scouring the crime scene and corpse for clues, and confronting murderers. All of these tasks are regularly performed by our precinct’s sketch artist.

9.) Any murder can be paired with something from classical art, so solving any given case kinda does involve taking a fine arts seminar, but that’s just law enforcement for you.

10.) When in doubt, drink a sponsored beverage.

[mahansblog]

I need a fanfiction of Du Cheng hissing at everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) who talks in his car when Shen Yi is sleeping in passenger seat.

It would be nice if some of them open their mouth just to ask him why he drives so slowly and why he is taking the absolute longest route.

As always, I look at you my dear dear fanfiction writers, my godsend angels.

[timotey]

You didn't sleep well last night, did you? It's okay.

When you fall asleep in your leader's office...

Where's my colleague? What did you do to my colleague?

When your leader realizes that the bad guy made you his next target...

How about... you play the role?

When you decide to make yourself the bad guy's next target to save his current one...

Goshy, goshy, this drama is giving me everything I wanted. It's pretty much what I wrote about when I was still writing fics for the MacGyver reboot, Shen Yi = MacGyver, Du Cheng = Jack, the genius and the one who's keeping him safe. But there, I had to add the feels (it was a US procedural, after all, little feels were had overall) but here? It's actually on-screen, not overwhelmingly so but still there. Actual emotional repercussions. Watch me do a shimmy in my seat! 🤗🤗🤗

Only 8 episodes left, though... 😞

[lostinadrama]

𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐧 2 (2024)

[da-man-si]

[shenzhiheng]

Under the Skin 2 猎罪图鉴2 | Episode 3

[ellsieee]

Oh no he didn't!!

Du Cheng says stfu, I don't have time for this shit.

[mistbornthief]

shen yi having du cheng's voice yelling for him as his wake up alarm is the single funniest thing any tv show has done ever

[dodginglife]

Hey I think I want...

COME AGAIN?

On second thought, since I drive you almost everywhere then fine just tell me when

*smiles* *calculates future heart attacks*

Look we all know Shen Yi is a smart man and police business is dangerous by definition. I just love it how Du Cheng equates successful case closure with Shen Yi being safe and alive and sleeping in my car, on my desk, watching the river with me, giving me drawings, eating with me, explaining art to me, buying me coffee...

[lunarriviera]

Under the Skin s2 trailer 9.25.2024