Detective Gui
宅女侦探桂香
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Peng Shun 彭顺 [Oxide Pang].
Rating: 3/10.
Wannabe quirky crime mystery falls flat on its face after an intriguing first act.
STORY
A Chinese city somewhere in East Asia, Dec 2015. Gui Xiang (Wang Luodan) is a geeky manga artist who has no social skills at all but a brilliant brain that has often helped the police solve crimes. Her one-and-only first love, Wu Liqiang (Ding Chuncheng), dumped her 95 days ago and she still cannot comprehend it. Seeing on TV that the Serious Crime Unit has still not made a breakthrough after three months on a case involving a dismembered body found on a construction site, she offers her services again to chief detective Bi Maonan (Na Weixun). Yang Xinzhe (Zhou Yumin), the young detective in charge of the case, is sceptical about her, but from the evidence Gui Xiang immediately concludes that the victim had something to do with an English-language school. They discover he was Li Bohong, an accountant at Maggie’s School, run by Wei Maji (Tian Xin), who says he was quiet and industrious. Later Wei Maji asks Gui Xiang to help with a mystery: Wei Maji’s eccentric aunt, Wei Jing (Bao Qijing), is convinced that Cai Chun’an (Ren Dahua), a plastic surgeon in the block of flats opposite, has murdered his wife, Lin Wenyu (Shao Meiqi). Gui Xiang challenges Yang Xinzhe to solve the case before her, but the police can only find that Lin Wenyu died of a diagnosed illness. Gui Xiang, however, learns that Cai Chun’an performed breast surgery on Wei Maji, and he was also a client of the dead accountant and introduced him to Wei Maji. Searching the doctor’s offices one night, Gui Xiang is caught by him but manages to escape with the help of Yang Xinzhe, who starts to fall for her. But that same night Wei Jing is mysteriously knocked down by a car and later dies in hospital.
REVIEW
Though Hong Kong-based Peng Shun 彭顺 [Oxide Pang] is normally a more interesting director when working solo from brother Danny Pang 彭发 [Peng Fa], he falls flat on his face with Detective Gui 宅女侦探桂香, a wannabe offbeat crime mystery that was almost entirely funded by Mainland companies but was actually shot in Taiwan with a local writer and d.p. On the face of it, the film is in the same vein as Peng Shun’s quirky crime mysteries The Detective C+ 侦探 (2007) and The Detective 2 B+ 侦探 (2011), set in Bangkok’s Chinatown and starring Hong Kong actor Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok]. But flawed as those films were, they look like masterpieces compared with Detective Gui which, after an intriguing set-up, flounders around between a weakly-plotted whodunit and a putative romance, with no special atmosphere. Alas for lead actress Wang Luodan 王珞丹, this doesn’t look like the start of a new character franchise; and it has none of the smart writing and playing that made, say, the Taiwan detective caper Sweet Alibis 甜蜜杀机 (2013) so enjoyable.
Set in an unidentified Chinese city – but looking very much like Taibei – the script by Taiwan writer Wu Zhenxiang 伍臻祥 sets up the character of a geeky manga artist (Wang) who has no social skills at all but a brilliant brain that’s helped the police solve crimes since her teens. Recently dumped by her one and only boyfriend, she takes up the case of a dismembered body and forms an odd-couple partnership with a young detective. Early scenes have some visual atmosphere in interiors, courtesy Mainland d.p. Chen Cheng 陈诚 (The Stolen Years 被偷走的那五年, 2013; Girls 闺蜜, 2014), but don’t follow through on the colour-corrected look; more seriously, the title character’s social dysfunction is almost dropped after the first half-hour in favour of a typically Taiwan putative romance.
The scripts have always been the weakest element of the Pangs’ films, and here Mainland actress Wang – clearly trying again to break away from her largely cute image (Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010; Caught in the Web 搜索, 2012; The Continent 后会无期, 2014) – is left stranded by a script that doesn’t really know how to develop her character as part of the drama. As a crime mystery, the film starts intriguingly, with Wang’s socially awkward geek making clever deductions, but later devolves into big chunks of exposition rather than real detection. With a woolly hat and nerdy gaze, Wang, 32, can’t do much to give her role any emotional grounding, and as her co-star Taiwan singer-actor Zhou Yumin 周渝民 [Vic Chou] (Linger 蝴蝶飞, 2008; New Perfect Two 新天生一对, 2012) just looks pretty, with no special chemistry.
Hong Kong veteran Bao Qijing 鲍起静 [Paw Hee-ching] has the most fun with a role of an eccentric aunt who sets the case rolling. Other actors mostly punch the clock, from Hong Kong’s Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] as a suspicious plastic surgeon to Taiwan’s Tian Xin 天心 as an equally suspicious language-school head. Technical work by regular collaborators, editor Peng Zhengxi 彭正熙 [Curran Pang] and Thai composer Payont Permsith, is okay, as is a midway car chase, staged by Hong Kong’s Wu Haitang 吴海棠, that’s the only real action in what should have been an offbeat character drama.
CREDITS
Presentd by Fujian Hengye Pictures (CN). Produced by Fujian Hengye Pictures (CN).
Script: Wu Zhenxiang. Photography: Chen Cheng. Editing: Peng Zhengxi [Curran Pang]. Music: Payont Permsith. Art direction: Huang Meiqing. Costumes: Xu Liwen. Sound: Xu Zhengyi, Ye Zhaoji, Nie Jirong. Action: Wu Haitang. Car stunts: Wu Haitang.
Cast: Wang Luodan (Gui Xiang), Zhou Yumin [Vic Chou] (Yang Xinzhe, detective), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Cai Chun’an, doctor), Bao Qijing [Paw Hee-ching] (Wei Jing, Wei Maji’s aunt), Tian Xin (Wei Maji/Maggie), Shao Meiqi [Maggie Shiu] (Lin Wenyu, Cai Chun’an’s wife; Wang Wenying, Lin Wenyu’s elder twin sister), Zhu Liling (Zhou Jiafei/Judy), Na Weixun (Bi Maonan, chief detective), Xu Shihao (Zhang), Ding Chuncheng (Wu Liqiang, Gui Xiang’s ex), Zhu Shenlong (Jin Guangda), Shi Xiu (Yang Shun, Yang Xinzhe’s father), Xin Meifen (Cai’s maid), Lin Yuxian, Zeng Yunhao (street-snack servers).
Release: China: 13 Aug 2015.