Detective VS. Sleuths

Instead of saying this is a detective story, it would rather be described as a creepy nonsense and full of shet talk.

The story writer focus too much on shaping a physical mad detective but completely ignore the basic reality of crime fiction presentations. For example, you would ask me to believe an female police officer would perform her job in crime scene where she have to chase, gun fight and building climbing when she is nearly at a stage of a childbirth? And you expect me to believe that Li Jun could be allowed to engage official crime investigation when he suffer severe mental health problem and risk all citizens and officers in life danger? Such nonsense just appeared all over the screen time and made people literally wonder what's going on with this movie.

Most of the character's motivations are simple, easy-predicated and some even ridiculous, which made people more easily to find that how unbelievable flat the character is. This is the kind of the story that you whish you never heard of. This is so....exhausted to watch. Once again, a new tip for myself: DO get out of it even in the middle of screening, when you find something funny is in the film. Instead of a crime fiction that you can enjoy, its more like those ridiculous Late talk show meme for spoof.

The movie sucks, and the characters talk and act like fools.

"We don't want to hurt anybody, we're just here for revenge!" What kind of criminals speak like that to calm the crowd? Maybe he should explain well on how he would like to do the revenge, by serving the enemy a massage maybe?

The movie is full of awkward paradox likewise in talks and actions, on every character, which distracts you from the story itself and make you curse.

The movie makers need to know a simple affair, that if you want to tell a detective story, just don't make it a story of idiots.

The rhythm of the story telling is chaotic too.

And the mixture of Beijing accent against mandarin amongst the actors of Hongkong and mainland makes no sense even in nowadays.

I like the original promise to be a continuation for the first film but the mystery whether the lead character has special power or not was part of the charm, this sequel sadly ruined some of that.

Quite a number of surprises although some was a bit lame. Part of the stories felt forced and was shock for the sake out it, a some of the characters could do with a few more acting lessons from the lead actor.

The film really was saved by Lau Ching Wan alone, his portrait is so good it made it almost uncomfortable to watch.

Overall, I found the film entertaining enough and is one of the better hk films in recent years.

In 2007, Ka-Fai Wai wrote and co-directed, along with his much more internationally-famous colleague Johnnie To, the absurd crime thriller "Mad Detective", one of my all-time favourite films.

Now, after a 13-year absence from directing, Ka-Fai Wai is back, this time without Johnnie To or To's production company Milky Way, but with a film that seems like a new riff on "Mad Detective", almost a sequel. Ching Lan Wau is back, playing again an insane detective with some apparently supernatural crime-solving abilities lying underneath his madness.

It might sound derivative of the former film, but Detective vs Sleuths has some new tricks up its sleeve, and it honestly feels extremely fresh. Its twisty plot comes together beautifully in the end, the action scenes are some of the best in recent memory, and Ching Lan Wau's performance is bloody brilliant. His antics are crowd-pleasingly hilarious, but it never undermines the film's commitment to its increasingly outrageous narrative.

This film feels like a throw-back, to a level of creativity in Asian cinema that was much more common in the 2000s than what we've seen in the last decade. Certainly, I enjoyed this more than anything Johnnie To has directed since "Mad Detective". That film inspired me to check out more of Johnnie To's work, but now I'm realizing that Ka-Fai Wai deserves equal attention, and I'm very glad he's back after such a long absence.

I was very into this movie for a while. The mystery is set up well and takes you on an intricate journey. Some of the action is pretty good and exciting. The lead actor gives a great performance. And I was invested in the main characters.

But the flaws killed it for me. The action becomes tedious and stale while also becoming outrageous and not believable. All the bullets miss. Early on I forgave this a couple times. But it keeps happening, and worse every time. Hundreds of bullets are shot and they keep missing.

Then you have other things like hilariously fake-looking blood spatter. Or other times when people get shot with no blood whatsoever. Or unrealistic CG fire.

I thought this was pretty good for a while and still has a lot of positives, but the negatives brought it way down for me. (1 viewing, 1/16/2023)