Guilt by Design

催眠•裁决

China/Hong Kong, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.

Directors: Li Zhaojun 黎兆钧 [Ken Lai], Shi Bolin 施柏林 [Paul Sze], Liu Yongtai 刘永泰 [Lau Wing-tai].

Rating: 6/10.

Laughably improbable courtroom thriller-cum-action drama is okay entertainment at a strictly pulp level.

STORY

Hong Kong, the present day. A trial is underway at the High Court, in which 19-year-old Lin Ziying (Yang Siyong) is accused of the murder of her second uncle, company chairman Lin Jiawei (Huang Si’en), after he tried to blackmail her one night into giving up an 18% shareholding worth HK$8 billion she was due to inherit from her father, making her the group’s biggest stakeholder. On the jury is clinical psychologist Xu Lisheng (Zhang Jiahui), long celebrated for his skill at hypnotising people without their knowledge; however, he gave up the practice 10 years ago following the death of his wife from a drug overdose due to postpartum depression. He now lectures in psychology at a university. On the final day of the trial Xu Lisheng’s young daughter, Xu Zhongyin (Ai Mi), competes in the athletics finals of the Hong Kong Youth Championships, accompanied by her uncle Yang Kai (Zhang Han), a former Mainland soldier. She wins but immediately afterwards is grabbed in the toilet by two kidnappers (Zhang Jiaming, Yang Liuqing) working for corrupt police inspector Deng (Zhang Zhaohui). As the jury waits to retire, Deng calls Xu Lisheng with the news, adding that he must follow further instructions via an earpiece he’ll find in the jury room’s toilet. (For HK$100 million, Deng is working for the defendant’s uncle, Lin Guoquan [Qin Pei], who is protecting his own son [Wang Haoxin], the real murderer.) Before he hands in his mobile phone, Xu Lisheng manages to copy the call to Yang Kai, who pursues the kidnappers thanks to a GPS watch he just bought his niece. Via the earpiece, Deng tells Xu Lisheng to use his hypnosis skills to manipulate the jurors into a guilty verdict; along with the earpiece, he has provided a list of the jurors’ backgrounds and weaknesses. Xu Lisheng finds that Deng has installed secret cameras all round the jury room. The seven-member jury, led by social worker Liang Baiqian (Zheng Zeshi), needs five votes or more to reach a decision. An initial show of hands reveals one, Zhou Xiong (Li Shangzheng), in favour of a guilty verdict, and four – Liang Baiqian, investment banker May Yim (Gu Zulin), Shanghai Chamber of Commerce member Liu Kuang Meixian (Jin Yanling), and gifted student Chen Yongxi (Cai Hanyi) – in favour of not guilty. Fang Huishan (Su Lishan), crippled by a car accident in her teens, abstains for the time being, as does Xu Lisheng. Meanwhile, the kidnappers discover they’re being followed and that Xu Zhongyin has a GPS watch. Deng tells Xu Lisheng he has 90 minutes to swing the jury. Outside, Yang Kai brings in Hotpot (Dong Chang), a former army colleague now working as a bodyguard, to help him rescue Xu Zhongyin. In the jury room, Xu Lisheng then discovers Deng has a spy among the seven of them.

REVIEW

Forced by his daughter’s kidnapping to hypnotise fellow jurors into a guilty verdict, a famous psychologist plays a double game in Guilt by Design 催眠•裁决, a laughably improbable thriller that’s okay throwaway entertainment at a strictly pulp level. Written and directed by three Hong Kongers – of whom one, Shi Bolin 施柏林 [Paul Sze], previously made the equally improbable crime comedy Rhapsody of Kidnapping 三个绑匪七条心 (2018, unreleased in the Mainland) – it’s one of those films that tries to be three things at the same time to hide the film-makers’ lack of confidence in the central premise. Despite a name cast led by Hong Kong’s Zhang Jiahui 张家辉 [Nick Cheung], and with Er Dongsheng 尔冬升 [Derek Yee] as creative producer 监制, the movie took only a blah RMB97 million at the Mainland box office.

Zhang plays a once-famous psychologist who was renowned for being able to hypnotise people without their knowledge but gave up the practice after his wife died a decade ago. Finding himself on the jury of a high-profile murder trial involving a young heiress caught up in a wealthy family’s shareholding shennanigans, he’s targeted by the bad guys and forced to use his powers to convict the teenage defendant of killing her uncle. There’s considerable potential in the central premise of a single man trying to turn his fellow jurors, as a fresh spin on the 1957 US classic 12 Angry Men (already adapted into the engrossing Mainland movie 12 Citizens 十二公民, 2014). But despite fleeting attempts to construct a claustrophobic, jury-room drama in which the evidence is logically re-examined, the film-makers rely on the psychologist improbably hypnotising the others in full view as well as cross-cutting to his young brother-in-law (conveniently a former PLA soldier) hunting down the kidnappers as the clock ticks down. The o.t.t. action finale isn’t helped by very average VFX.

One of Hong Kong’s finest actors, Zhang, 55, has had his busiest year for a couple of decades and can still turn in an okay performance in dodgy material (Integrity 廉政风云 烟幕, 2019; Bodies at Rest 沉默的证人, 2019). In Guilt, however, even he looks unconvinced by his own character, and isn’t given much to do apart from looking inscrutable behind academic spectacles. Among the fellow jurors, Taiwan veteran Jin Yanling 金燕玲 [Elaine Jin] is under-used, while Hong Kong’s Gu Zulin 谷祖琳 [Jo Kuk] looks stern to little effect as a corrupt investment banker and Su Lishan 苏丽珊, 27, simmers as a confused wheelchair victim. Best of all is Cai Hanyi 蔡瀚亿 (the taiji expert in The Way We Dance 狂舞派, 2013; the male pal in 29+1, 2016), as a clever university student who starts to re-interpret the evidence before being booted out of the plot. Cai’s character gives a clue as to what Guilt could have been if the film-makers had kept their nerve.

In the parallel story, Mainland actor Zhang Han 张翰, 35, looks more convincing as an action character than he did in Wolf Warrior II 战狼II (2017) but is again let down by his bland looks and is hardly stretched by the only okay staging by Hong Kong stunt co-ordinator Qian Jiale 钱嘉乐 [Chin Ka-lok]. Hong Kong veterans Qin Pei 秦沛 [Paul Chun] and Zhang Zhaohui 张兆辉 [Eddie Cheung] reliably phone in their villains, while Zheng Zeshi 郑则仕 [Kent Cheng] blusters as the jury foreman.

Technically, the Hong Kong key crew delivers a smooth production, with top editor Peng Zhengxi 彭正熙 [Curran Pang] bringing everything in at a tight 90-or-so minutes and the jury-room scenes looking especially smooth thanks to d.p. Zhang Wenbao 张文宝 (who shot Zhang Jiahui’s third directorial outing, The Trough 低压槽之欲望之城, 2018) and art director Cai Huiyan 蔡慧妍 (A Home with a View 家和万事惊, 2019; Line Walker 2 使徒行者2 谍影行动, 2019). The score by Hong Kong’s Zhang Zhaohong 张兆鸿 and Zhong Zhirong 钟志荣 (action drama The Brink 狂兽, 2017) adds nothing. The film’s Chinese title means “Hypnotise, Adjudicate”.

CREDITS

Presented by Grand Canal Pictures Yangzhou (CN), Perfect Village Entertainment (Hong Kong) (HK), Mei Ah Films Production (HK), Interstellar Motion Picture (HK). Produced by Grand Canal Pictures Yangzhou (CN), Perfect Village Entertainment (Hong Kong) (HK), Mei Ah Films Production (HK), Interstellar Motion Picture (HK).

Script: Li Zhaojun, Shi Bolin, Liu Yongtai. Photography: Zhang Wenbao. Editing: Peng Zhengxi [Curran Pang]. Music: Zhang Zhaohong, Zhong Zhirong. Art direction: Cai Huiyan. Costume design: Zhong Chuting. Styling: Xi Zhongwen [Yee Chung-man]. Sound: Guo Zhiwen. Action: Qian Jiale [Chin Ka-lok], Huang Weihui. Visual effects: Tan Qikun, Zhong Jiahao, Wu Jiatong.

Cast: Zhang Jiahui [Nick Cheung] (Xu Lisheng), Zhang Han (Yang Kai), Zheng Zeshi [Kent Cheng] (Liang Baiqian, jury foreman), Jin Yanling [Elaine Jin] (Liu Kuang Meixian, juror), Zhang Zhaohui [Eddie Cheung] (Deng, police inspector), Gu Zulin [Jo Kuk] (May Yim, juror), Qin Pei [Paul Chun] (Lin Guoquan, Lin Jiawei’s elder brother), Cai Hanyi (Chen Yongxi, juror), Wang Haoxin (Lin Baiming, Lin Guoquan’s son), Su Lishan (Fang Huishan, juror), Li Shangzheng (Zhou Xiong, juror), Ai Mi (Xu Zhongyin, Xu Lisheng’s daughter), Yang Siyong (Lin Ziying, defendant), Guo Zhenghong (Peter, Wesson Group chairman), Dong Chang (Huoguo/Hotpot), Zhang Jiaming (Daishu, male kidnapper), Yang Liuqing (Mao/Cat, female kidnapper), Luo Yingjun (Feng Xianhui, defence lawyer), Zhang Songzhi (prosecuting lawyer), Zeng Qilun (judge), Chen Anli (Lin Jiawei’s son), Guan Yongyi (Lin Jiawei’s wife), Wang Zhi’an (mad prisoner), Huang Si’en (Lin Jiawei, Lin Bros. Group chairman), Fang Zhiju (Hua), Liang Jiajin (rich kid), Jian Shu’er (Huang, sports teacher).

Release: China, 25 Oct 2019; Hong Kong, 7 Nov 2019.