Blind Detective

盲探

Hong Kong/China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 128 mins.

Director: Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To].

Associate director: Mai Qiguang 麦启光.

Rating: 2/10.

Manic crime comedy by Du Qifeng [Johnnie To] is a total flop, in which nothing seems to work.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. Before he was forced to retire four years ago after an accident that resulted in detached retinas, Zhuang Shidun (Liu Dehua) was a gifted police detective. He now handles cold cases for “bounty” fees, via his old police friend Situ Fabao (Guo Tao). When hit-team detective He Jiatong (Zheng Xiuwen) sees Zhuang Shidun cleverly solve the case of an acid-thrower, she gets him to help her solve an old personal mystery – the disappearance a decade ago of her high-school friend Li Xiaomin (Lang Yueting) after she refused to go out with her one night. Since then, He Jiatong has always felt guilty. Inbetween using her to solve other cold cases, Zhuang Shidun gradually works out that Li Xiaomin was the victim of a serial killer who murdered girls during the years 1995-2007, with Li Xiaomin his final victim. And eventually he finds a suspect.

REVIEW

The less said about Blind Detective 盲探 the better. A rare example of a Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] movie in which nothing seems to work, and even at a basic craft level is below the prolific Hong Kong director’s usual standards, Detective seems like an aggressive return by Du to his Hong Kong roots – following his foray into new territory with the Mainland-shot Drug War 毒战 (2012) – that is only half thought-through and especially slapdash at a script level. Among his 50-odd films as a director, Du has stumbled before – My Left Eye Sees Ghosts 我左眼见到鬼 (2002), Mad Detective 神探 (2007) and Linger 蝴蝶飞 (2008) are notable examples from the past decade or so – but not to such an extent as here and not across a running time (128 minutes) that seems as interminable as here. A high-concept idea typical of his film-making partner Wei Jiahui 韦家辉 [Wai Ka-fai] – a blind amateur detective who solves crimes by intuition and lateral thinking hooks up with a female detective to form an odd-couple partnership – this scatty Detective makes the earlier (and very similar) Mad Detective seem like a properly developed idea.

Stars Liu Dehua 刘德华 [Andy Lau] and Zheng Xiuwen 郑秀文 [Sammi Cheng] have made memorable rom-com music together in previous Du titles (Needing You… 孤男寡女, 2000; Love on a Diet 瘦身男女, 2001; Yesterday Once More 龙凤斗, 2004), and the energetic Zheng, though slightly too old for the part, is well cast as a rambunctious police detective who inveigles Liu’s amateur sleuth into solving the disappearance of her high-school friend Xiaomin some 10 years ago. But Detective is only peripherally a rom-com, and Lau is badly miscast here as a grumpy, independent investigator: the role requires an actor with much more screen weight and rumpled personality (among Du’s stable, someone like Huang Qiusheng 黄秋生 [Anthony Wong] springs to mind), and Liu always seems to be reaching for a performance that’s beyond his grasp.

Among the several Mainland actors thrown into the mix, comic Guo Tao 郭涛 looks and sounds completely out of his comfort zone (especially when dubbed into Cantonese) as the manic police boss and Gao Yuanyuan 高圆圆 (previously in Du’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 单身男女, 2011, and Romancing in Thin Air 高海拔之恋II, 2012) is thrown away in a brief role as a beauty from the blind detective’s past. But it’s the script, by Wei and other regular writers, that’s principally at fault: between the sequences of overheated comedy (played at top volume) the detection scenes don’t evoke any special magic or mystery and the way in which the titular detective reaches solutions seems completely arbitrary, with no sense of real deduction (either lateral or otherwise). If Mad Detective was a Wei script that needed at least one more re-write, Blind Detective is one that needs re-writing from scratch.

Production values are just OK by Du’s regular team, here augmented by Canadian TV composer Hal Foxton Beckett.

CREDITS

Presented by Media Asia Film Production (HK), Emperor Film Production (HK), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), China Film (CN), Beijing Rosat Film & TV Production (CN), Media Asia Film Distribution (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Milkyway Image (HK).

Script: Wei Jiahui [Wai Ka-fai], You Naihai, Chen Rui, Yu Xi. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing supervision: David Richardson. Editing: Liang Zhanlun. Music: Hal Foxton Beckett. Production design: Yu Jia’an [Bruce Yu]. Art direction: Ma Guangrong [Horace Ma]. Costume design: Zeng Baiquan, Huang Jiabao. Sound: David Richardson. Action: Yi Tianxiong. Visual effects: Luo Weihao.

Cast: Liu Dehua [Andy Lau] (Zhuang Shidun/Johnston), Zheng Xiuwen [Sammi Cheng] (He Jiatong), Guo Tao (Situ Fabao), Gao Yuanyuan (Dingding), Wang Ziyi (Zu), Lang Yueting (Li Xiaomin), Lu Haipeng (Peng), Huang Wenhui (Li Xiaomin’s grandmother), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Li Desheng), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Chen Guang), Yao Yingying (Peng’s daughter-in-law), Zhu Mimi (Peng’s wife), Li Chengchang (Peng’s son), Che Wanwan (Peng’s daughter), Zeng Shouming (Peng’s son-in-law), Lu Fen, Ma Tilu (nosy women), Qin Huang (Fattie), Xu Zhixiong (De), Zheng Keling (young Li Xiaomin).

Premiere: Cannes Film Festival (Midnight Screenings), 19 May 2013.

Release: Hong Kong, 4 Jul 2013; China, 4 Jul 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 May 2013.)