Detective vs. Sleuths

When I stumbled upon the 2022 Hong Kong crime mystery "San Taam Daai Zin" (aka "Detective vs Sleuths"), I had to sit down and watch it.

First of all, it was a Hong Kong movie that I hadn't already seen, and that in itself is more than sufficient to make me watch it. But the movie also has Ching Wan Lau and Charlene Choi on the cast list and they usually tend to make okay movies.

However, the storyline in "San Taam Daai Zin", as written by Lu Jia, Li Jie, Ka-Fai Wai and Yibing Wang, was a swing and a miss for me. The storyline was incredibly cluttered and made for a very confusing viewing. Whatever was going on in the movie just wasn't properly introduced or described to the audience, and as such I felt like I was sitting in darkness trying to make sense of the barrage of events, killings and characters that came rushing at me on the screen.

For a crime mystery, then director Ka-Fai Wai just went a bit overboard in terms of setting out to accomplish way too much with the storyline.

The acting performances in the movie were good, and especially Ching Wan Lau portrayed the disturbed Lee Chun character quite well.

Lots of nice locations throughout the course of the movie, and there was a nice dynamic feel to the movie and the way it was filmed, and that at least helped make the movie somewhat more watchable.

This is not a shining gem in the Hong Kong cinema, and it is definitely not a movie that I would recommend fans of the Hong Kong cinema to rush out and get to watch. In fact, this movie is one that I will never return to watch a second time. There are indeed far better crime mysteries in the Hong Kong cinema, if that particular genre is what you enjoy.

My rating of "San Taam Daai Zin" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

Detective vs. Sleuths, written and directed by Wai Kai Fai, is essentially a Milkyway film produced through the China-Hong Kong co-production machine. It is a bigger-budgeted, louder and dumbed-down police actioner that's constantly speeding to the next scene. Sean Lau is as always an engaging lead but is unfortunately sidelined as a cog in a larger formulaic machine.

As a string of brutal killings storms Hong Kong, Jun Lee, once a brilliant detective in the police force who was let go after a mental breakdown, conducts his own investigation the victims are all connected to his past cases. Yee Chan, a police detective who was a victim of one of the past cases, enlists Lee Jun's help to find the killer.

Sean Lau Ching Wan is easily the best part of the film. He plays a rehashed version of his lead role in The Mad Detective as a cop who solves crimes with supernatural abilities, which Lau improves upon by acting out the ghosts that converse with him. It's entertaining watching Lau's rapidly changing facial expressions talking to himself.

Charlene Choi tries her best but is unconvincing as a distinguished police detective. She overplays her character's vulnerability, looking like she's constantly on the verge of tears and not communicating an investigative mind solving the case at hand. On top of that, her character is pregnant and questionably partaking in dangerous action head-on. It is not more ridiculous than say running from a dinosaur in high heels, but it lacked conviction. In an interview, Choi was asked about her role preparation and said she was only told what to do on the day and thus what we see is her genuine reaction to everything.

Carman Lee is wasted as the police madam explaining the plot to the audience. Based on acting chops alone, I could picture Carman Lee doing a better job as the female lead if this was made back in the day.

Who had the final say on Detective vs. Sleuths? I'll never know. It plays like a movie made by its money backers cashing in with established formulae, which outweighs the creative parts of the script.

Wai Ka Fai sets up the mystery in an interesting way, but he is completely uninterested in exploring his own high concept. The rapid-paced editing never gives a moment to breathe or contemplate the crime. Most of all, the film repeatedly drowns itself in long monotonous shootouts that lack weight or consequence. The "pew pew pew" way the guns were fired, the bullets may as well have been orange rubber darts.

What the film tries to sell as depth is ridiculous. What father lovingly teaches her daughter Friedrich Nietzsche quotes in German?

I would recommend rewatching Mad Detective instead.

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.

The storyline is good, with great level of depth as well as twists and turns. It's easy to understand and NOT confusing at all.

The pace is fast and compact! Things happen here and there to keep you going, without a sense of boredom from the beginning to the end!

An appropriate level of action was inserted to enhance the visual excitement, e.g. Gunfights and typical HK car chasing scenes. All these action sequences work well to keep the momentum going. And the clues unfolded one by one to facilitate audiences' understanding towards the cases and reasons for murders! All the main casts performed well to make it a good show!

However, two main pitfalls were picked up as follows: Firstly, the pace is far too fast that it doesn't allow the movie to breathe and the audiences to think through what is going on!

Secondly, each clue is unfolded too quickly! It should allow audiences to process each clue and piece together the puzzles to guess who is the SUSPECT! In fact, this is a psychological thriller, it should thus confuse audiences more, especially Lau Ching Wan's role with his paranoid delusion and multiple-personality disorder, and challenge our ability to unfold the clues. Yet, it's made to look more like an action movie, revealing all things abruptly!

I gave 8/ 10. Overall, it's a great movie! I would highly recommend you to watch it in the cinema, to enjoy the tension and dynamic action, which you will NEVER get from your laptop or home TV. It's definitely worth your ticket money! Take my words! Go, Go, Go..!!

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.