The Detective [DVD]

There hasn't been a good private eye film in ages, and it seems like there hasn't been a good film from the Pang Brothers in even longer, but 2007's The Detective addresses both missing items very satisfyingly indeed. Aaron Kwok is the likeable C+ grade private detective in Thailand who's not overburdened with smarts or cases until a butcher he met in a bar hires him to find a woman who's following him and wants to kill him. Naturally there's more to the case than meets the eye as various people in a charred photograph all start to meet their deaths, either at their own hands or those of a killer, and just as naturally the police, in the form of his childhood friend Liu Kai Chi, think there's no case to pursue. It's a thoroughly engaging thriller that throws in some neat out-of-leftfield surprises involving elephants and refrigerators that it's well worth avoiding the film's spoiler-heavy trailers to preserve, and the quite excellent Kwok and Liu Kai Chi have real screen chemistry together as the kind of friends who seem to tolerate each other as much as they genuinely like each other. With Oxide Pang directing solo (though Thomas Pang co-wrote the screenplay), it benefits greatly from the style being allied to a strong story with good characters and - again if you can avoid the synopsis, which hints at it too heavily - there's a real frisson to the final revelation of just how and why Kwok was led to the victims as well as a bit more emotional weight than you'd expect at the end. It's so good that it's a pity the 2011 sequel, that sees Kwok elevated to a B+ detective, is widely reported to have been a major disappointment that rehashes the original to considerably less effect.

Terracotta's UK PAL DVD offers a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, though the limitations of the original's use of natural light in some scenes leads to a few very dark scenes evening daytime, but has a decent extras package - brief making of featurette, premiere footage, trailers, stills gallery and introduction by Oxide Pang.

If you're hoping for a horror in the same vain as The Eye then The Detective C+ is not the movie for you, it is a mixture of action, thriller and suspense with a supernatural element and a few dashes of comedy. Kwok gives a stellar performance as our bumbling, Bangkok detective, relying on luck rather than any skills of deduction to solve his case, hence the C+ of the title which when said in Cantonese, the film's original language has the same meaning as Private Detective, as explained by director Oxide Pang in the intro to this UK exclusive edition of the movie.
As the many layers of the case unfold, the movie reaches its eerie climax and goes some way to explain how the detective's luck may have been down to divine guidance.
This also sets us up for the sequel which sees our detective promoted to B+ status in The Detective 2, I won't go in to that though as it will spoil the plot of the first one.
On a whole, this is a thoroughly entertaining ride and one of the best Pang Brothers movies in a long while, this UK exclusive DVD also has some nice extras and has been re-subtitled so this version will make more sense than the Asian export versions that appear to have been translated in babelfish so the intricate plot will make more sense, if you can keep up with its many twists and turns.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable film. Aaron Kwok's performance is first rate as a not-so-bumbling private investigator whose determination pulls him through to some unexpected discoveries whilst on the trail of a puzzling murder mystery. Expertly built up suspense leads to some genuinely shocking moments. The dream sequence, for instance, has to be one of the most economical, yet effective one laid to film in some time. I'm also not sure that anyone would be prepared for the discovery during the possible nod to Star Wars. If ever you're in need of a Saturday night film with a bunch of mates, this should be on your list!