Rating: 4/5
Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 17/52 | Category III</a?</b>
At District Crime Kowloon West, Detective Chan Kwai-Bun holds a knife as he circles a butchered pig hanging in the middle of his office. A newspaper headline states: “Female Student Stabbed Over Ten Times.” Inspector Ho Ka-On enters the office to report for duty and sees several men observing Bun. Bun stabs the butchered pig repeatedly. Inspired, Bun grabs a suitcase large enough to hold himself and asks Inspector Ho to push Bun down the stairs while he is inside it. Ho obliges. Another newspaper headline states: “New Breakthrough. Body Found in Suitcase.” At the bottom of the stairs, Ho lets out a dizzy Bun, who immediately determines that the ice cream shop owner is the killer. Unbelievably, this assertion is correct, and Bun has solved the case. Cut to Bun attending the police chief’s retirement. Bun steps up and cuts off his ear to give to the chief. The police force him into early retirement.
Three and a half years later, during a stakeout, officer Wong Kwok-Chu goes missing after he and his partner, Ko Chi-Wai, chase Naresh Sherma into the woods. Eighteen months pass with no sign of Wong. Bun reads the headlines at a convenience store while his wife, May Cheung, buys him candy bars. Bun and May return home to find Inspector Ho waiting for them. Ho asks Bun to help him with the case, telling him that Wong’s gun has been used in several robberies despite him still being missing. May grows furious that Bun is even entertaining returning to police work and starts a fight. The confused Ho leaves as he witnesses Bun seemingly fighting with himself.
Still, Bun returns to the office to assist. Bun hears the voice of a doubting woman that no one else can see. The woman appears to be another personality inside a male detective, and Bun headbutts the woman/detective in the face. After watching Officer Ko’s testimony, Bun and Ho tail him. While Ho only sees Ko, Bun sees seven distinct individuals all walking in unison. Ho approaches Ko at a restaurant, asks questions while Bun watches. One of the individual personalities feeds lines to the one sitting with Ho.
The film follows Bun and Ho as Bun uses his unusual gift to solve the case or die trying. Because, as Bun says, “dying is better than living miserably, and I’ve been miserable for a while now.”
— Can you see her? — Just trying.
This movie is so off-kilter! You could easily call it a comedy or a spoof of crime thrillers, but it’s also a crime thriller. It effortlessly plays in and with the tropes, treating the audience as smart enough to be able to distinguish the difference. And by smartly playing in both Bun and Ho’s perspectives, we piece together what is actual and what is visible only to Bun.
The Chinese title for the movie is literally Miraculous Detective, but a better translation is something like Master Sleuth. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Bun works from an emotional reasoning and subjective space. Like Holmes, he derives facts from improbable intuitions and connections. The film never diagnoses Bun as schizophrenic, but Bun is Beautiful Mind-ing throughout, so I can understand why reviews might assume that.
Most surprisingly, the intuitions Bun has made sense, and while we can’t follow every step he takes, it comes together satisfyingly. Though Ho doesn’t accept everything at face value, he still trusts Bun, having seen his track record. It’s a refreshing dynamic from the believer/skeptic dichotomy that usually arises in these stories.
What a pleasant surprise this was!