Regeneration is a drama with a lot of ambiguity and deception behind every episode. What started as a common tale of revenge against a scammer, slowly but surely turned into a drama about perception. Much like piecing together a puzzle (as the opening alludes to), you don't get a clear understanding of the events that unfolded until the last few episodes. Heck, I'd even argue there are many things intentionally left unclear by the time you reach the end.

The stage was set. You have a funeral for the charming and smart scam artist Fei Ke and the attendees: all his victims. Each character shares their story of how they met Fei Ke with each story being sadder than the last. Several plot twists later and the plot becomes less straightforward than originally believed.

Without giving too much away, it turns out, everybody is terrible. This main reveal is what made this drama compelling to watch. To steal a line from the ml "there are no good or bad lies. It's all just a lie." This is the driving force behind the drama: the many lies from unreliable narrators.

Every character blamed Fei Ke for their misfortunes. At first glance, their anger would seem justified. Fei Ke did scam them, after all. But as the "truth" gets revealed, it becomes clear every characters downfall was orchestrated by their own hands. They all approached Fei Ke instead of the other way around. They all were deceptive and used Fei Ke as a means to avoid taking responsibility for their own terrible actions.

I almost made Fei Ke sound like a victim here. To be clear, he wasn't exempt from the same flaws the other characters faced. His whole life took a turn for the worst when he got caught doing something illegal. And instead of taking responsibility and being more angry at his careless actions, he blamed his friend for ratting him out.

If this all doesn't sound exciting to you then that's completely understandable. Regeneration isn't the smartest cdrama ever crafted, but it's one that really makes you think until the very end. It poses some interesting questions about what is the truth and what is a lie. In the end, we don't really get an answer to many of the questions as the director wanted to focus on perception and not objective reality.