Critical Overview: Ms. Ma, Nemesis (Part Two)

 Critical Overview: Ms. Ma, Nemesis (Part Two)

 

In my second installment of my series on the Korean series Ms. Ma, Nemesis, based on Agatha Christie’s novel Nemesis, I will look at the stories being adapted.

 

The title story forms the heart and backbone of the narrative, as Ms. Ma herself becomes the person wrongly accused of a crime, and the victim is her own daughter.  The basic outline of Christie’s novel is stretched out into a sinister conspiracy, and a crucial twist, which was vital to the book, seems rather unnecessary and cruel in this adaptation.  A lot of the narrative is original, but unlike many other adaptations that use Christie’s work as a starting point, Ms. Ma, Nemesisoverwhelmingly works on its own merits.

 

Other novels, like The Moving Finger, The Mirror Crack’d, and A Murder is Announced have stripped-down versions of their stories incorporated into the narrative, serving rather like side quests for Ms. Ma to solve while she tries to catch her daughter’s killer.  The Moving Finger does a good job of setting up the complexities of the Korean parallel version of St. Mary Mead, with the central problem being that one minor subplot is never properly resolved.  The Mirror Crack’dnarrative is pretty solid, aside from a very rough translation of Tennyson’s titular poem.  As for A Murder is Announced, the main problem is that it’s much too short, and could have used another couple of episodes.  Otherwise, the conspiracy at the center of the case takes it’s name, Bertram, from At Bertram’s Hotel, but not much else from the book.

 

Overall, this production does an interesting job of adapting Christie’s work to reflect contemporary multicultural styles, without messing too much with the clever clueing and plotting that is a strength of the book.  In most cases where random changes are made to Christie’s work, I feel disgusted.  With Ms. Ma, Nemesis, I was intrigued.

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.