Detective vs. Sleuths

Not a booring movie so it should be watched atleast once who likes thriller or detective story.

Story is good.

Action is ok.

Actors are good.

Character are in good set.

Just a bit too fast for Viewers who do not know Cantonese language.

The main character has fast thinking and speech is also too fast as per the story. So when you rely or have dependency on Subtitles than you loose some scene or either how the story is connected.

If possible than Viewers are advised to watch atleast in their understanding language i.e. Dubbed version.

I am sure even dubbing artist will face challenges in dubbing for the main character.

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.

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.

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..!!

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)