Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This film can't make up its mind if it wants to be a featherweight romantic comedy or a Seven/Silence of the Lambs-style dark thriller.Without any funny jokes or a credible or even remotely interesting villain it succeeds as neither. Add an unthinkably daft twist ending and you end up with a very confused mess. If it's creepy, it's not in a good way - the creepiness lies in trying to figure out how Johnny To could possibly think it a good idea to put a subplot about a cannibal serial killer of young women in a slapstick romantic comedy.It's possible something got lost in translation, but I really can't imagine what kind of cultural insight would make this make sense.

Johnnie To's latest film marks a long-anticipated reunion of Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, the rom-com triad has chalked up magical box-office draw and successes in the Aughts (most victorious ones are LOVE ON A DIET 2001, 7/10 and NEEDING YOU… 2000, 8/10), and after a 9- year-hiatus (since YESTERDAY ONCE MORE 2004, 6/10), this "iron triangle" has notched up an inspiring comeback which ingeniously imbues a lighthearted rom-com into an out-of-left-field detective thriller with an adequate whodunit revelation in the end.For international territory, Johnnie To is mostly appreciated by his grim and stylized portrayal of Hong Kong's crime and gangster underbellies, a patriarch ruling world of ambitious figures seeking for money, women and power, but his collaboration with Lau and Cheng is a consistent offshoot from To and his own MILKY WAY IMAGE COMPANY's prolific filmography, not to mention is his most popular and profitable ones. So the innovation banks on how To would mingle his trademark darker traits into the audience-friendly couple (Lau and Cheng, indicates their 7th on-screen alliance as lovers), which could allure both To's hardcore fans and a wider general appeal from a maturer demography. Judging by the finished film, the tentative stab is a smart move, BLIND DETECTIVE is on its way of becoming To's most money-earning film in mainland China market (previously the record was just freshly held by To's earlier drug-cartel undercover drama DRUG WAR 2012).A posh Andy Lau, a former police officer who has been blind in lieu of his negligence of his own health in order to track suspects, teamed with a wealthy policewoman (Cheng), who is obsessed with the disappearance of her friend 20 years ago, together they manage to crack a few unsolved cases while put their own lives in danger. For Lau's method of deducing, if you are familiar with the new series HANNIBAL, imaging oneself at the murder scene and incarnating one's identity as the culprit to visualize what had happened is not new, but the mind-cum-body default (Lau is the mastermind while Cheng is the right-hand woman does all the action labor) works wonder here, with Cheng's ongoing crush on Lau, the pair sparks off a flavorful rib-tickling screwball casualness allies with the horrid cases they are working on, a superb visual stunt comes from the mortuary slaughter, gallows humor galore. Sammi Cheng is burdened with a great quantity of physical endeavor out of her slim frame, furthermore she is exhorted to deliver her career-best stretches as the film demands, i.e. the myriad avatars of heartbroken female victims, and her comical timing with Lau is another linchpin to the success. Lau, an epicure more than a sleuth, is amiable and emits his deadly debonair all over the devil-may-care script. Among supporting roles, mainland players Tao Guo and Yuanyuan Gao are sidelined only as comic relief, while a cocktail of veteran Hong Kong thespians is shortchanged by the brevity of their presence. Strictly speaking, the process of disclosing the perpetrators is not as cogent as it seems, the hyperbole of Lau's knack (against his blindness) is sometimes pulling audiences out of the picture a bit, but BLIND DETECTIVE is a paradigm of To and his team's great attempt to concoct a genre-blender which is both entertaining and ruminative, it is an earnest piece of work, a precious gem considering the plight of China's mainstream cinema (potboilers are brimful while the market is rising at an exponential rate), Johnnie To, is the last straw of the once-glorious Hong Kong film industry and he is the trailblazer refuses to compromise or pander for the unique policy-oriented requirements, calling for emulators and successors.

Nearly 10 years after their last movie together, Andy and Sammi reunite along with Johnnie To once again to form what the media has already described as a "Solid Trio", bound to create a smashing movie hit that can wow its audience and effortlessly dominate the box office for as long as it screens. The movie centers around Ho, a female cop who joined the force after her schoolmate went missing back in the day. She seeks the help of a detective, Johnston, who, while blind, was an intuitive man capable of puzzle-piecing his imagination to recreate crime scenes. The movie's heavy play on humor from the beginning was like setting a mood for the movie, especially in the scenes where Johnston tried to reenact crime scenes with Ho. And yet, amazingly, it's the perfect movie for sick people like me who at the same time crave for scenes of violence. The even mix between such intensity and light-heartedness throughout the film must have been hard to achieve. While this probably isn't anything new to Hong Kong cinema, it seems Johnnie To had taken the genre in his masterful hands and made it his own.Yet, the movie wasn't all perfect. While the funny bits had kept me well-entertained and interested, the monotonous non-progress of the storyline seemed to have done otherwise. Just saying, I might have skipped a scene or two if I had a remote. I was at the edge of my seat, eagerly waiting for the story to get good, but it never really got there. Simply put, the movie should have been a lot shorter. I should imagine a lot more could have been done with a story that had a concept as great as this. And I shan't deny that there came a point of time where I decided Johnston was basically a scientist hypothesizing a million possibilities and spinning his own yarn just to prove those hypotheses true. It just soon began to feel as though Johnston was telling a story; a story that he wrote. Many reviews that I have read have briefly criticized Andy and Sammi for overacting their roles in many parts of the movie. I, on the other hand, have a different take on this. Obviously, this isn't one of those typical cop movies that Hong Kong cinema produces hundreds of, every year. Unlike those movies, "Blind Detective" had no endless gun shots, long-winded crook chases, or all-of-a-sudden-everyone-knows-kungfu stints. The overacting was necessary, in my opinion, to have the audience bear in mind the unique atmosphere and essence of the film; that it's not just crime; that it's the awkward get-together of Ho and Johnston that results in a show so full of fun to watch. Need I even comment on the incomparable chemistry that's oh so perfect between Andy and Sammi?As a close follower of Sammi's film work, especially in the recent years. I can easily contrast "Blind Detective" with "Lady Cop & Papa Crook". Thankfully, and fortunately, I'd see the former 10 times with 10 paid tickets before I'd see the latter once with a free one. "Blind Detective" was a perfect showcase of Sammi's acting skills. The versatility of the mini role-plays she performs within the movie just proves that she is no ordinary actress. And that just kicks people wondering why she hasn't gotten a Hong Kong Film Award yet. Her commendable skills, paired with Andy Lau's excellent enactment of an intuitive blind detective, which everyone in the cinema had probably mentally applauded for, possibly made the movie a hundred times better than it would have been.In a nutshell, it was definitely worth a watch. Just focus on the humor and don't let the draggy-ness of the film get to you. If you're not gonna see it it for the story, then see it for the cute couple. Just Andy and Sammi alone might have made the ticket worth its price.

Johnston (Andy Lau) is the blind detective and Ho Ka Tung (Sammi Cheng) is his side- kick. Due to a case of retina displacement, Johnston is blind but being blind has honed his sixth sense - imagination. He picks up cold police cases which offer monetary rewards to solve. Ka Tung needs his help to solve the mysterious disappearance of her best friend back in 1997. Together they form a cute partnership where Johnston used her to solve his cold cases, while Ka Tung longs for the day the mystery of her missing friend is solved and that Johnston will finally 'see' her. Earlier this year I have already seen Johnnie To's Drug War. Though excellent, it feels politically sanitized and doesn't quite fit into To's usual oeuvre. Blind Detective is a definite 'welcome back' film from him but sadly it isn't in the gangster vein. It's To doing rom-com again. Lately To's rom-coms are always a miss for me but this one has a detective procedural pulse which I always love. The last time Johnnie To did a detective genre film was Mad Detective and I totally adored it. The final scene of a guy experimentally placing his gun in different spots still sent a glee to my face. Last week we saw the trailer for Blind Detective and both my wife and I say almost in unison "must see". However there was one moment in the trailer that made us go WTF - Andy Lau driving blind, but more of that in a while. We love the movie but seriously we are quite biased towards procedurals. The detective portions here work like a charm. We are shown the smoking guns. Then doubts are cast to make us re-think everything. Everything is done right, nothing preposterous, everything is logical and never too much of a stretch. We love the scenes where we are shown the mind space of Johnston where he deconstructs the crime scene, complete with victims 'talking' to him. Brilliantly done. I didn't see Andy Lau in Switch which I heard is a terrible film but his acting here is excellent. I have seen Tony Leung act blind in Silent War and it's very interesting to see two different craft in action. Leung does it serious while Lau does it in a comedic manner. There are some cool stuff that Lau do that entrench his prowess in our consciousness... very clever work. The blind driving part also works remarkably well and never ridiculous because that is exactly how a blind person would drive, plus To uses the sequence to make them confess their feelings. There is also the rom-com angle which I feel To just managed to pull it off through the palatable chemistry between Lau and Cheng. Cheng as usual acts as the blur one (十三 点) which she always managed to pull off convincingly. Lau and Cheng's partnership is like Hank and Ryan's, a sure win. How Lau and Cheng play off each other is quite funny. I also love how the tone of the movie can switch from slapstick rom-com to all seriousness within a heartbeat. Over a dim sum supper, we pulled apart the movie (sometimes these sessions are more fun than the movie ). We didn't like Johnston's unrequited love arc which made the middle act sag. We took that arc out in our heads and it definitely firmed the movie up a lot. We had no doubt why this arc is in there - it features a China actress and it's tailor-in for the China market. All in all, a nice flick. I love watching movies that entertain and make my mind work. This one does that for us.