What a view | The best shows to watch this week: Twisted Strings on HBO, Expedition with Steve Backshall on BBC Earth
- Seven-part anthology series Twisted Strings is a Taiwanese thriller-chiller that takes a satirical look at avarice, self-interest and wilful ignorance
- Meanwhile, the second series of Expedition with Steve Backshall returns with more explorations of some of the wildest, hardest to reach places on Earth
Monkey business is afoot in suspenseful, fantastical seven-part drama series Twisted Strings – a Taiwanese thriller-chiller with shades of black (or at least dark grey) comedy, continuing on HBO and HBO Go.
Featuring Sylvia Chang as Wu Yuenu and Lee Kang-sheng as funeral director Mr Tang, and directed by Huang Xi, with Hou Hsiao-hsien as executive producer, the anthology takes a satirical look at avarice, self-interest and wilful ignorance.
Ticking each of those deplorable boxes is the Guo family of three bickering siblings, who have come together to prepare for the funeral of their father (Michael J.Q. Huang).
Although they have little to do, because their control-freak patriarch has already arranged everything, they can’t be bothered doing it and would rather fight over who will inherit what and who was the most loyal and responsible of the offspring (an honour that actually goes to a non-family member).
Unbeknown to all, including Mr Tang, who is unfairly taken advantage of and asked to exceed his duties, the body of the father has disappeared, which will prove a bad omen as the series progresses and fate’s strings become, well, twisted (something disturbingly hinted at by the depressed-looking wooden puppet monkey of the titles).
Next for a cosmic come-uppance is Hsueh Shih-ling, starring as obnoxious drunk Yunlong in episode two. At a family birthday party, his bored relations and long-standing friends, finding him utterly tiresome, suggest staging the treasure hunt they played as children – which leads him into a trap.