# The Long Night (2020)

> A prosecutor finds that an apparently airtight murder case hides a deeper injustice and spends a decade pursuing the truth at great personal cost.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/87828

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: If Chen, Zi Jin Chen
- Network: iQiyi
- Cast: Liao Fan, Bai Yu, Zhao Yang, Lü Xiaolin, Tan Zhuo, Ning Li, Lu Siyu, Zhao Leiqi
- TMDB rating: 8.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11298328/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: grim, tense, morally serious, bleak, methodical

## What critics say

Audiences rate it as an acclaimed, tightly plotted legal thriller whose central mystery and prosecutor's long pursuit of truth hold attention.

## Synopsis

The Long Night (2020) is a Chinese crime drama series created by If Chen and Zi Jin Chen for iQiyi. Liao Fan plays prosecutor Yan Liang, who is handed a murder case that looks airtight, with hundreds of witnesses and a signed confession, only to discover once it is ready for court that the killing was a cover for a far more shocking injustice. Bai Yu, Zhao Yang, Lü Xiaolin and Tan Zhuo play principal figures drawn into the same tangle of evidence and loyalty. The engine of the story is a single determined man against an institution that prefers the convenient version of events, and each episode peels back another layer of the case, tracking the years he spends toiling away his career, reputation and family life. This single-season run of twelve fifty-minute episodes is a serialized, slow-burning mystery built on patient investigation rather than spectacle. Its tone is grim, weighty and morally serious, with a steady undercurrent of dread about how far the truth can be buried. Adapted from a novel, it is set in contemporary China. Fans of The Wire, Unforgotten and Hidden Blade will find resonance in its investigative grit and its portrait of institutional corruption.

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