Last Suspect
拯救嫌疑人
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.
Director: Zhang Mo 张末.
Rating: 4/10.
Remake of Korean crime thriller 7 Days, about a hot-shot lawyer and her kidnapped daughter, is holed by a ridiculous script and mechanical direction.
STORY
Kuapuar, an English-speaking city somewhere in Southeast Asia, mid-autumn festival, 2022. Thirtysometing Chen Zhiqi (Zhang Xiaofei) is a celebrity defence lawyer who is famous for getting acquittals for clients whom everyone agrees is guilty. Her latest success, with Victor Chen [Chen Bao], accused of murder, is her 30th consecutive win in a lawsuit. After the case, state prosecutor Cui Mingzhi (Liu Huan) tells her that one day her luck will run out. Meanwhile, in Chinatown, maverick alcoholic police detective Jin Zhixiong (Li Hongqi) chases and captures a bag thief, injuring him in the process. The thief registers a complaint and police chief Liao Guangsheng (Yin Ziwei) suspends Jin Zhixiong, especially when Jin Zhixiong accuses him of taking bribes. Jin Zhixiong asks for legal help from his childhood friend, Chen Zhiqi. At her school sports day, Chen Zhiqi’s eight-year-old daughter Chen Pei’en (Wang Yixuan) is kidnapped right under her nose. A single parent, Chen Zhiqi is devastated. Also, she has so many enemies among the victims of cases she’s won that the kidnapper could be anybody. She then receives a message from the kidnapper (Yu Yuan) that he wants her to represent a convicted killer, Daniel Cek Khas (Hong Junjia), in his appeal against a death sentence that’s due to start in five days’ time. If she fails to get him acquitted, her daughter dies. Day 1 第一天. Daniel Cek Khas was accused in early Aug 2022 of the murder of university art student Liang Xinyuan (Bao Shang’en). He claims he found her body when delivering her dog from a pet shop where he worked. Chen Ziqi asks for Jin Zhixiong’s help but doesn’t tell him why she is handling the case. Together they inspect the corpse and the crime scene; the latter is full of expensive gifts, and at the time there were rumours on social media that the dead girl was moonlighting as a prostitute. Traces of a hallucinogen, Angel’s Kiss, were found in her body. Jin Zhixiong thinks Daniel Cek Khas is guilty; Chen Zhiqi is not so sure. Day 2 第二天. At the girl’s funeral, they speak to a fellow student who says he saw a man with a neck scarf driving her car away from her flat that night. Posing as a reporter, Chen Zhiqi interviews the girl’s mother, Lin Shu’e (Hui Yinghong), who denies her daughter was a prostitute. Day 3 第三天. Chen Zhiqi and Jin Zhixiong identify “scarf man” as Jimmy Ahmad (Wang Ziyi), but immigration records show he hasn’t been in Kuapuar city for a year. They trace Daniel Cek Khas’ elder brother but it turns out he’s been paralysed for years. Chen Zhiqi gets an urgent message that her daughter has developed a serious rash; the kidnapper agrees to meet to collect the medicine but things end chaotically when Jin Zhixiong tries to capture the kidnapper and Chen Pei’en. After discovering that Jimmy Ahmad is in a drug rehabilitation centre, Chen Zhiqi breaks in and tries to question him; but she can’t get a confession from him, and that same night he disappears. Day 4 第四天. Jin Zhixiong finds that Jimmy Ahmad is the illegitimate son of chief state prosecutor Ann Abdul Rahman (Tang Zhenye), who has been protecting him. He then tries to make sure that a piece of incriminating evidence is destroyed and that Chen Zhiqi and Jin Zhixiong don’t make it into court the next day. Day 5 第五天. As the appeal trial starts, everyone in court, including state prosecutor Cui Mingzhi, waits for Chen Zhiqi to arrive and defend Daniel Cek Khas.
REVIEW
Last Suspect 拯救嫌疑人 is the kind of movie that should be shown in film schools rather than cinemas. A crime thriller centred on a hot-shot lawyer who’s forced to handle a convicted murderer’s appeal when her young daughter is kidnapped, this third feature by Zhang Mo 张末 (Suddenly Seventeen 28岁未成年, 2016; Snipers 狙击手, 2022, co-dir.) is entirely composed of visual devices from other films and has a totally formulaic feel with no individual signature. Even that wouldn’t matter if the screenplay wasn’t quite so ridiculous. But the combined effect is like watching an exercise in film-making assembled by a well-programmed computer – efficient, by the book, and oblivious to anyone watching it. Amazingly, it took a very nice RMB569 million on Mainland release.
The script, which took Zhang – eldest daughter of veteran Mainland film-maker Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 – and six others to write (including four connected with the nonsensical rom-com 0.1% World 好想去你的世界爱你, 2022), is actually a fairly close remake of the hit South Korean thriller 7 Days 세븐 데이즈 (2007), directed by Weon Shin-yeon 원신연 | 元新渊 and starring actress Gim Yun-jin 김윤진 | 金允珍 in a comeback role (see poster, left). That film, however, was hardly perfect: its visual style was all over the show, with references to US crime series like CSI and films like Se7en (1995), a jazzed-up look with lots of wobblecam and hand-held close-ups, plus percussive music, a plot full of leaps of logic and dodgy legal procedures, and just an adequate performance by Kim. But it had an impressive first reel (up to the daughter’s disappearance) and kind of came together in the final 40 minutes, thanks to some cinematic sleight-of-hand.
Last Suspect comes up with a flashy finale and some other action business, ditches the drugs subplot, shortens the number of days, adds a coda that sheds some new light on the villain, and relocates the whole thing in a fictional, English-speaking Southeast Asian country that bears resemblances to Malaysia or Singapore. It also drops the nervy visual style and editing of 7 Days, and has a much stronger central performance by Mainland actress Zhang Xiaofei 张小斐, 37, as the cocky lawyer whose world suddenly falls apart.
But the dialogue in Last Suspect is over-expository, some of the courtroom antics are as unbelievable as in 7 Days, and the underlying theme of parenthood (and how far one will go to protect one’s children) is merely stated, never developed in any meaningful or moving way. Essentially, Last Suspect doesn’t feel like a crime mystery put together by people who know the genre: the basic plotting and the revealing of clues are either clumsy or laughable, and Zhang Mo simply directs the whole thing as if she’s working from a manual. Never at any moment is it involving, even on a superficial level.
Zhang Xiaofei, who was so good as the young mother-to-be in mega-hit time-travel comedy Hi, Mom 你好，李焕英 (2021), becomes less believable as she falls apart emotionally, and only has so-so chemistry with 33-year-old Taiwan actor Li Hongqi 李鸿其 (Love You Forever 我在时间尽头等你, 2020; I Remember 明天你是否依然爱我, 2020), a normally likeable actor who slightly over-cooks his role of an alcoholic maverick cop who’s also the lawyer’s childhood friend. Other performances are okay within the script’s limits, especially Hong Kong’s Tang Zhenye 汤镇业 as the oily state prosecutor and Mainlander Liu Huan 刘欢 as his more honest deputy. Hong Kong veteran Hui Yinghong 惠英红 [Kara Hui] is more than solid as a murdered girl’s grieving mother, though casting such a well-known actress in the role is a bit of a giveaway.
On a purely technical level, the widescreen photography by Mainland d.p. Duan Chunyu 段春宇, in his first major big-screen outing, is never less than handsome but lacks an overall look. Action sequences, with some surprisingly full-on violence, are scored in wallpaper style by Liu Tao 刘韬, with pounding synths. The shortcomings of Zhang Mo’s film and lack of any originality are doubly disappointing, as the tale told is actually a dark and rather nasty one that could have been powerful in the right hands.
The film’s Chinese title translates as “Saving the Suspect”. Director Zhang, 40, appears in one shot as a gossipy parent surrounded by two friends at the school sports day. Her American husband, Daniel (Wade) Manwaring 孟丹青, formerly a CAA executive in Beijing and currently CEO of Imax China, briefly appears near the end as a psychiatrist. (He also played a US sniper in Snipers and a small part in Suddenly Seventeen, on which he was also an associate producer.)
CREDITS
Presented by Dino Films (Wuhan) (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Dongfang Chenxiang Investment (Wuhan) (CN), Mountaintop Culture Media (Tianjin) (CN), Zhejiang Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Beijing Dino Films (CN), Beijing Ultra Comedy Culture Communication (CN). Produced by Ningbo T-Rex Culture & Communication (CN).
Script: Sun Lin, Zhang Mo, Hu Xiaoshuai, Pang San Jing [Wang Bo], Shen Lin, Sun Zeyu, Ding Rui. Photography: Duan Chunyu. Editing: Chen Zhiwei [Andy Chan]. Music: Liu Tao. Music supervision: Yu Fei. Art direction: Nan Nan. Costumes: Du Boya. Styling: Liang Jiang’er. Sound: Xu Chen, Liu Yanjie. Action: Su Hang. Visual effects: Sam Khorshid, Jiang Dongliang, Shen Yuan (Beijing Phenom Films). Executive direction: Ding Zenghui.
Cast: Zhang Xiaofei (Chen Zhiqi/Vicky), Li Hongqi (Jin Zhixiong/Kim), Hui Yinghong [Kara Hui] (Lin Shu’e/Susan), Wang Ziyi (Jimmy Ahmad), Hong Junjia (Dan Wen/Daniel Cek Khas), Yin Ziwei [Terence Yin] (Liao Guangsheng/Simon), Bao Shang’en (Liang Xinyuan/Rebecca), Wang Yixuan (Chen Pei’en, Chen Zhiqi’s daughter), Tang Zhenye (Ann Abdul Rahman, chief state prosecutor), Liu Huan (Cui Mingzhi, state prosecutor), Lai Xi (coroner), Li Yuehui (chief judge for Victor Chen case), Kima (associate judge for Victor Chen case), Wang Jiachen (Michael, Chen Zhiqi’s assistant), Fou Wenhui (Chen, Chinatown shopkeeper), Li Zhiyuan (Chinatown thief), Zhang Mo, Sun Rong, Su Ying (relay-race mothers), Huang Haoquan (police officer at Chen Zhiqi’s home), Yu Yuan (Hu Yusen, kidnapper), Sun Letian (Chen Zhiqi’s partner), Li Bochao (Zeng, Daniel Cek Khas’ lawyer), Zhao Tingting (pet-shop owner), Alex Chernomor (New Leaf rehabilitation centre doctor), Zhang Liwei (chief judge for Daniel Cek Khas case), Daniel Wade Manwaring (Wade, psychiatrist).
Release: China, 1 Nov 2023.