Review: The Bad Kids

Overview

Warnings

Though not particularly gory, there is a lot of death in this show.

Review

Strengths

• Amazing acting from the three child actors. A lot of the show is carried on their ability to make the audience sympathize and root for them.
• Perfect, creepy performance from Qin Hao.
• Excellent, suspenseful pacing.
• Really cool soundtrack.
• So many tiny details and clues strewn throughout.

Flaws

This show is an incredibly intense, perfectly-paced, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller about three kids who accidentally film a murder while sightseeing & the rollercoaster of events that entangle them with the murderer.

I binged all 12 episodes of this show in 24 hours, and my heart is still pounding from the adrenaline. There is ZERO filler in this show and practically every interaction has further consequences down the line as every character's lives and choices entangle them further with each other. It's been a long time since any show marketed as suspense actually *kept* me in suspense, biting my nails and yelling at the screen. And this has to be the first time I have ever yelled for Qin Hao to get off my screen anytime he appeared, which really goes to show how well he portrayed the character.

Major props to the three child actors, who had to carry the incredibly high emotional stakes in this show, making the audience sympathize with them & cheer them on. And Qin Hao was just perfect with his portrayal of a man spiraling out of control while keeping up a normal act.

This is a crime thriller that delves into dysfunctional family dynamics, friendships, trust, death, violence and carries with it warnings for dark content that comes with this genre. But it's not deliberately grimdark or edgy. It's all very human.