Fifteen years after the release of the critically acclaimed " Detective ", Liu Qingyun and Wei Jiahui reunite again to play an equally unhinged detective in the frantic Detective Wars . Although Liu Qingyun's characters in these two films have the same nickname of "The Detective", they are not the same person and have no connection. We can regard this latest "Detective War" as "Detective" The spiritual sequel of "The Detective", after all, Liu Qingyun's character is dead at the end of "Detective".
"The Detective War" begins with several scenes rudely, shaping Li Jun, played by Liu Qingyun, into an excellent case-solving expert. He was so annoyed at the poor performance of his fellow police officers in the high-profile "Butcher" and "Magic" investigations that he stormed a press conference, hijacked a police officer, and showed them to everyone present. Find out how the murderer did it. Then the time jumps to 17 years later, and now Li Jun has become a homeless person, estranged from his daughter, whom he still misses.
Li Jun's investigative instincts are rekindled as a group of mysterious masked men calling themselves "special detectives" begin to execute in the name of justice those behind the scenes of unsolved cases from the past. In addition to lynching and revenge, these "detectives" also left specific case numbers at the crime scene to predict their next action targets, in order to ridicule the incompetence of the police. In the process of Li Jun's pursuit of the "magic detective" alone, he met an unexpected ally - female police officer Chen Yi ( Cai Zhuoyan ), who was not only interested in Li Jun's legendary detective ability, but also interested in him and the dead Communicating insanity fears.
Chen Yi's husband Fang Lixin ( Lin Feng) is also a police officer, and we later learned that both of them are closely related to the "Butcher Case" and "Magic Police Case". Chen Yi readily accepted Li Jun's idea of investigating the case, but Fang Lixin and other police officers, including Li Jun's former partner and now the director Huang Xin ( Li Ruotong ), did not trust him, so that Chen Yi and colleagues halfway through They parted ways and turned to hunt down "the detective" with Li Jun alone. Any more
will destroy the surprise of Wei Jiahui's layout. Although some of the plots seem familiar, at least they are still eye-catching. Although Wei Jiahui is not as prolific today as it was a decade or two ago, "The Detective War" proves that his talent in screenwriting has not diminished, especially in the last third of the film, where he has made the plot intense and action-packed. The crime thriller transforms into a moral allegory about crime and punishment, with an impressive reference to Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Also thanks to his script, Lee Jun ends up as a convincing tragic protagonist struggling to break the cycle of hatred and revenge.
It's a pity that Wei Jiahui did not cooperate with his old partner To Qifeng this time. Anyone familiar with his previous works will find that the impact of To Qifeng's absence is obvious. Without Du Qifeng's composure, Wei Jiahui's rhythm and arrangement are very casual and often messy. Like the chaotic opening mentioned earlier, the film advances at a frantic rhythm, leaving little room to fully explore the character's motives; ironically, this also diminishes the original depth of Wai Ka Fai's script, and even tends to downgrade it For a normal action movie. In addition, Wei Jiahui also lacked To Qifeng's efficient and cool shooting skills for shooting shootouts. Most of the shooting scenes were chaotic and lacking in participation, which in the end only made people feel boring.
In the chaos, Wei Jiahui at least put the focus of the story on Li Jun; thanks to Liu Qingyun's layered performance, the film didn't completely spin out of control. Although Wei Jiahui has a tendency to go crazy, Liu Qingyun avoids exaggerating the character's personality, so Li Jun can still resonate with people, even unexpectedly poignant. Cai Zhuoyan and Lin Feng's performances this time are the best in recent times. The other supporting roles (including He Peiyu who plays Li Jun's daughter and Tang Yi and Chen Jiale who play police officers) are also excellent, but Liu Qingyun dominates from beginning to end.
In view of the reunion of Wei Jiahui and Liu Qingyun after more than ten years, it is self-evident that everyone has high expectations for "Detective War". Those fans who expect to be as perfect as "Detective" will inevitably be disappointed, because Wei Jiahui once again proved that he has not yet reached the level of Johnnie ToPeak's directorial level. However, given the lack of police and bandit films in Hong Kong in recent years, this new film by Wai Ka Fai still represents a welcome return to police and bandit movies. The film is flawed but entertaining enough, but its brilliance is dimmed by the frantic rhythm from start to finish.
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