Fantasia - The Detective

The Detective

I have an unhealthy obsession with detectives. I mean in a two-month period I rented and watched every single episode of 'Columbo' (because Peter Falk is the fucking man). So when I saw that 'The Detective' (or 'The C+ Detective' in HK) was playing at Fantasia I was giddy.

Right from the get-go the movie played to all the perfect stereotypes of a film noir detective flicks of 1960s. Tam is a down on his luck private detective who is asked to follow up on a job from 'Fatty' Lung who believes Sum, a beautiful woman, is stalking him and plotting his murder. Seeing it as easy money he takes the case and follows a handful of leads with the help from Chak, his childhood friend in the police force. What seems like a simple case is soon riddled with suicide, murder and falling refrigerators as Tam delves deeper and deeper into a dark web as he tries to find the elusive Sum.

On the surface, the film works perfectly as detective noir. However, the overall atmosphere is heightened by director Oxide Pang's experience with supernatural and horror films (having worked on 'The Eye') and a thick layer of suspense hangs over the entire film, broken sporadically with spots of light humor. Indeed, the relationship between Tam and Chak plays something to the tune of a buddy film making the overall mix of the film (2 parts detective noir, 1 part suspense/horror, 1 part buddy film) a delicious concoction.

As well, the script (written by Pang and his brother) is clever and the storyline is filled with twists and turns to the point where the number of names of people you need to keep track of is somewhat overwhelming, but the Pang brothers provide enough description and monologue to keep the viewer up to speed, but not repetitive.

However, the weakness of the film comes from the filmmakers' desire to somehow connect the case to Tam's personal life and in a stupidly unlikely (and painfully overdrawn) coincidence, the entire mystery ties perfectly together with the death of Tam's parents over thirty years earlier. Moreover, this storyline is tacked on midway into the film and draws the ending of the movie some fifteen minutes longer than it should have. Why they would want to over complicate an already solid plot by sticking in a melodramatic tangent is beyond me and ultimately it does hurt the film. Taken without it though, 'The Detective' is a ton of fun regardless if you're a detective nerd like myself.