Movie Review: The Detective 1 & 2/C+侦探 & B+侦探

T he Detective/C+侦探has a great opening scene featuring Aaron Kwok, Shing Fui On and… noodles. 

Shing Fui On hires Aaron to help him find out who this woman is… who’s following him… and wants to kill him.

Aaron gets help from his childhood friend, played magnificently by Liu Kai Chi.

He’s a police officer, since his eyesight is better than Aaron’s. 

Stevie Wonder’s eyesight is better than Aaron’s character’s eyesight.

As Aaron tries to piece together the identity of the mystery woman, he seems to have a knack for finding dead people. Or for being there when they die. 

Naturally this doesn’t endear him to Liu Kai Chi.

Speaking of endearing, Jo Koo’s cameo made me understand why its soooo hot in Thailand.

And in my pants. But I digress.

The other mystery he starts to unravel is the disappearance of his parents more than 30 years ago.

The film features a lot of small roles for people like Wayne Lai and Kenny Wong. 

Aaron Kwok did a really good job of acting, and not overacting, as he is so often prone to.

There are two scenes where he gets to act… severely, but I found both of them to actually be appropriate.

If you see the movie, you’ll know what I mean.

Just imagine either of those things happening to you.

The Detective /C+侦探  isn’t perfect; there are some logical lapses, but these are sacrifices on the altar of cinematic spectacle.

If you’re getting chased by a big truck, don’t run between parked cars, or down any of those narrow alleys.

Just run down the middle of the street. It looks much more interesting onscreen.

But that’s really the only thing I can think of that took me out of the viewing experience. The rest of the movie was a lot of fun and very interesting.

I really enjoyed the Thai pop music soundtrack. It was interesting, and made a nice change from the usual Cantopop.

The Detective was, and still is, surprisingly good, featuring convincing acting, strong direction, and a number of really great cameos.

It was Shing Fui On’s final movie, and I will always regret that I never got to meet him.

I watched The Detective /C+侦探  twice in the cinema, so when they announced a sequel, I was looking forward to it.

I watched this movie at the Dynasty, and I was in the right place. It was not going to surpass its predecessor, B+ in the title be damned.

Frankly, D+ is more like it.

A murderer is killing people in weird and terrible ways. The police are desperate to catch him.

So desperate that they enlist the help of the worst detective in Bangkok.

No, it makes no sense to me either. But apparently everyone in Bangkok speaks Cantonese.

All makes sense now, huh?

Flashback: A young man loses his parents. And his mind.

This is one of those movies where they tell you everything about the murderer’s background but keep his present-day identity a mystery.

They throw in lots of red herrings to try and distract you. Is it a cop? Is it a lunatic?

The problem is, the film is such a shoddy mess that I didn’t really care.

There was nothing engaging about this film. I had no interest in the plot or the characters.

I found myself just waiting for it to end, and the wait seemed interminable.

I was very disappointed, because I really liked the previous film.

It was funny, well-made, entertaining and  really drew me in.

The Detective 2/B+侦探 really didn’t.

When the wittiest part of a film is an actor’s p*ss-take on the mind-bending abortion that was another one of his films, then you’ve got problems.

I watch movies so you don’t have to.

And no one should watch this movie.

The epilogue is a leaden, obtrusive 2AM-last-call-you’re-fat-but-you-have-a-vagina-so-I-gotta-try pitch to get you interested in a sequel.

It didn’t work.