Great Pretender: Razbliuto

9/10 EASILY one of the most underrated pieces of media on all of MyAnimeList as it currently sits at a score of 6.79, and I am quite picky with giving something a score as high as 9/10 (on my main account). This ONA/movie is actually BETTER THAN the original series IMHO. I'm calling it an ONA/movie because it was released as a 4-episode ONA but some streaming services have mashed together these 4 episodes into a single movie for a better viewer experience. This ONA/movie is *mostly* a standalone adventure that is unrelated to the original series but you do need to have watched the originalseries to make sense of a lot of details and to understand the ending. As far as I know it's unclear exactly when this story takes place but probably after all the events of the original series. The main point of this review is actually not to make a review, so I'll just quickly skip through that process: The plot is incredibly well thought out and cleverly written and interesting and entertaining, both the main characters and the side characters are all very charming and/or cool, the dialogue is very well written and the art direction and the animation and the voice acting and the sound design and the music are all super excellent, overall a great 9/10. The REAL REASON I'm writing this review is because I believe that the reason that this sits at a 6.79 (at time of writing) is because people didn't get it. The original series handholds the viewer a lot in explaining everything, especially the endings, but this ONA/movie doesn't do that as much and you have to put more of the pieces together on your own. I think a lot of people probably failed at that and then they didn't like it and then that's why it has such a low score, so my intention here is actually to just explain a bunch of things and that's what the whole rest of this review will be. WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD WARNING LIKE LITERALLY THE NEXT SENTENCE HAS BIG SPOILERS WARNING (also I'll use Dorothy's real name throughout the rest of this review but in the movie her "new" name is "Xiang Xiang"): In the very final scene of the ONA/movie Laurent walks up to Dorothy at an airport and simpy asks her where terminal 2 is, Dorothy then simply points Laurent in the right direction without saying a word and then he waves goodbye and leaves. Dorothy looks at him as he walks away, and after a few seconds, she smiles, and then the screen goes black, and the credits roll. What actually happened here is that Laurent knew Dorothy could be in one of 3 states: A: She actually has total amnesia, in which case he doesn't want to drag her back into his life and he's just happy knowing she's alive and well. B: She remembers him and some, if not all, of her old life and she wants to get back into it together with Laurent, in which case they leave the airport together and scam some bastards. C: She remembers him and some, if not all, of her old life but she *doesn't* want to get back into that life and instead she wants to leave that life behind and live her own new life, in which case he doesn't want to drag her back into his life and he's just happy knowing she's alive and well. Since she acted like she didn't know him that leaves out option B, but the smile afterwards tells us that she did recognize him and chose her new life, so option C is correct. Dorothy either actually had her memories back the whole time before the movie even started, or she got them back during the movie (like when she opened that box with some of her old stuff). If it is the case that she had her memories back all along then the reason she always acts like she still has amnesia is just because that's the easiest and most effective way to completely leave her old life behind her. The reason she never contacted Laurent earlier in that case is then obviously also just because that was the best way for her to leave her old life behind her. I started with the final scene because I think that's one of the most important things people could miss, but let's take it back to earlier in the ONA/movie. Why does Jay risk everything for Dorothy? Jay repeatedly says it's because she was there for him when he woke up from his amnesia, but they only had a single day and night together and he has all his memories back so that doesn't really make a lot of sense. This is actually explained pretty clearly, but it's because he figured out right away that Dorothy is the woman who scammed his "old man" (Wang/the boss) and got shot on a boat 10 years ago and he knows that if the syndicate get their hands on her they will kill her. He also does genuinely kinda like Dorothy and he is honestly thankful that she helped him when he hit his head and he also does seem to believe her when she says that she has amnesia, so, he doesn't want her to die and he also thinks that she doesn't deserve to die. Every time he makes an execuse it's just to not reveal that he knows the truth. Next up: Every single backstabbing in this whole ONA/movie makes perfect sense. This is a broader thing with that the ONA/movie has *a lot* of backstabbing going on left and right and some viewers might feel like they don't make sense and are just done for shock value or forced in for the sake of the plot but this is absolutely not the case and all of them are very well thought out. Explaining these backstabbings will make up almost all of the rest of the stuff I'm going to explain, because everything else that needs explaining is also directly or indirectly related to these backstabbings. After Ayi helps Jay and Dorothy escape from Dorothy's apartment, he kinda backstabs Lin by not turning them in for 200k, this is done partly because he's old friends with Jay but also because he thinks he can get even more money out of Jay and he could also still turn in Jay later anyways. Ayi then later DOES backstab Jay and tells Lin where Jay is going to pick up his passport. The first reason for this is that it's a perfect opportunity, Lin can easily set up an easy ambush and then Ayi gets the 200k dollars. The second reason for this is because while Ayi was looking for Jay's passport, he also found some cash Jay had hidden there, earlier Ayi told Jay "I want everything you have!" in exchange for Aiy's help, well this cash Ayi just found might be "everything", in which case it's much smarter to go for Lin's 200k now. The final reason is more speculative but Ayi might sympathize with Dorothy's situation, and this ends up being a good way for him to turn in Lin without turning in Dorothy, which is nice. After Lin sets up an ambush and captures Jay, Jay gets sent to a syndicate saferoom. Lin then proceeds to backstab the syndicate and help Jay escape from the saferoom, and when Jay then comes to Lin's apartement, Lin proceeds to instead backstab Jay and poison him and try to taze him. The reason Lin does this double-backstab is because he didn't get Dorothy and he wants to use Jay to get Dorothy too, and he wants to do it on his own so that he gets all the money and cred himself. At this point Lin has already seen a photo of Dorothy from back when she scammed their company, and while he hasn't met the "new" Dorothy, he's heard her description and suspects them to be the same person, after Lin poisons Jay he also literally says "I now know for sure that this woman of yours is worth a hell of a lot of money". Around the same time, Wang (the boss/old man) also kills Tsai, this isn't really much of a backstab but just punishment for Tsai doing a useless job at handling this whole Jay + Dorothy situation, and also because he was appearantly stealing too much drugs for personal use from the syndicate. In a similar vein the syndicate decides to (try to) kill Lin, again not much of a backstab and just done as punishement for Lin "helping" Jay, although Lin escapes. Later on, after Jay and Dorothy have reunited they're sitting at a restaurant, where Jay kinda backstabs Dorothy and tells her that even after everything they've gone through, he can't betray his old man and that he's essentially not going to help Dorothy any more and whatever happens happens. The implication here is that he only does this to save Dorothy and that he thinks Dorothy has her best shot of surving by getting the hell away from him while he confronts Wang, this is also arguably confirmed by the fact that when he does meet Wang his final and only wish is that Wang lets Dorothy go. And now, finally, the most interesting and important backstabbing of the whole movie that puts bascially all of the puzzle pieces in place. Bingyan betraying Wang and the whole dark and rainy warehouse scene. Let's first recap what happens in the scene: Wang meets up with Jay who's ready to be executed, when suddenly Dorothy and Ayi show up and yell at them to stop. Bingyan then takes Wang's gun and points it at Dorothy and tells her to tell them what the name of the blonde asshole is, Dorothy seems to be clueless but for some reason Ayi knows and tells Dorothy it's Laurent Thierry. Ayi also tells some other random facts about Laurent but then suddenly Bingyan shoots Dorothy (with a secretely non-lethal round) and then after that Lin shows up with a van that Ayi gets into after they first get Dorothy into the van. Jay and Wang then have a physical fight, where Bingyan has an easy shot on Jay but instead does nothing and Jay manages to strangle Wang to unconciousness. We skip forward to when Wang wakes up, as Jay, Ayi and Dorothy have all escaped, and only Bingyan is left. Bingyan gets a call from a mysterious man who *she* calls "the boss" and who tells Wang "It's been ages, Mr. Wang!". This mysterious man, who also seems to have a bit of an unusual accent, then tells Wang that Wang seems to have taken an interest in their Singapore investment opportunity and he tells Wang "And so, I thank you for your most generous payment!". He also tells Wang that "One really must keep a tight grip on the reins of one's employees" which is followed by Bingyen getting into a car and driving away. I'm sure the pieces are all starting to click together just from reading that, but yes the man who called was of course Laurent, and Bingyan has worked for Laurent the whole time, and the whole Singapore trade deal that Wang has been interested in throughout the ONA/movie, a deal that he actually also did complete in an earlier scene, was all set up as a con by Laurent. This whole con was probably planned before Jay and Dorothy met and probably before Laurent maybe even had any idea that Dorothy was alive. But thanks to Bingyan working for Laurent, Laurent learned of Dorothy's involvement and existence and had all the other insider details he needed to craft and plan out the perfect outcome and the perfect con, as he always does, which he of course did here too. Some more details: Ayi mentioned early on in the ONA/movie that he had contact and was friends with Abby, the same Abby from the original series who's a central member of Laurent's crew, after everything Jay asks Ayi how he knew where Wang would meet Jay, to which Ayi responds that he had an accomplice within the syndicate, this accomplice is of course Bingyan who of course works for Laurent who probably connected them together. Through either Bingyan or Ayi is then also of course how Lin got to know where they all were. The reason Lin saved them is because he's on the run from the syndicate anyways and he kinda owes them. And finally when Bingyan drives away from the warehouse scene, the pickpocket kid who served an important role in the plot earlier is sitting in the car, which means he was working for Laurent the whole time too and all his very convenient actions were just a part of Laurent's perfect plan. I think that about wraps it up, there are probably some more details or parts that got some people confused that actually make perfect sense but I can't think of anything more right now. I've seen people say the ending was rushed but I totally disagree, it was not at all rushed, it was excellently paced if you were able to follow everything that was happening. I've also seen people say that the ending was too convenient, but basically all of Laurent's expertly crafted cons end flawlessly in the original series, because he's just that good, so that's basically just business as usual. Thanks for reading and have a good day!