Saturday Night At The Movies

The case of the cracked case-cracker: Mad Detective

By Dennis Hartley

“When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam. I looked into the soul of the boy sitting beside me.”

-Woody Allen

In the opening scene of Mad Detective (a new psychological drama/murder mystery that cheats on its metaphysics exam), detective inspector Chan Kwai Bun (Lau Ching Wan) appears to be intently staring into the soul of a dead pig, suspended from the ceiling of a homicide division squad room. A group of his fellow officers silently stands by, transfixed by the sight of Bun, wielding a formidable looking knife as he circles the dangling porker. When rookie inspector Ho Ka On (Andy On) blunders into the room to report for duty, he is pulled aside and shushed by another officer, who whispers, “Bun is immersed in the investigation.” Suddenly, Bun lunges at the pig and begins to stab it repeatedly. Then he dives under a desk and grabs a travel bag, bidding the wide-eyed Ho to accompany him to the top of a staircase. “I’ll lie inside the suitcase,” Bun says. “You push me down the stairs.” And so begins the partnership between inspectors Ho and Bun.

Bun, as we quickly come to learn, apparently possesses the ability to literally “look into the soul” of both perpetrators and deceased victims alike (a neat trick that handily one-ups the cognitive abilities of your typical criminal profiler), and has consequently racked up a 100% success rate solving his murder cases. This odd ability doesn’t come without its psychic/social price; Bun is viewed by most of his peers as a bit of a freak show and is pushed into an “early retirement”. The doubts about his overall mental state appear to be confirmed when, at the end of his tenure, he inexplicably slices off one of his ears (a la Van Gogh) and dutifully presents it along with his gun and badge. (Cuckoo! Cuckoo!)

However, according to the Rules of Old Mentor/Young Protege Cop Buddy Movies, at this particular point in the narrative, an occasion must arise that precipitates Bun being dragged out of retirement to help solve “one last case” (otherwise, we would only have a 20 minute film.) After a fellow cop mysteriously disappears, Ho talks the reluctant Bun into assisting in the investigation, to lend a bit of that special voodoo, that only he do.

Now, this is where co directors Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai decide to borrow a few tricks from M. Night Shyamalan, and start to have some wicked fun with the viewer’s perception of reality; especially when you realize that you are “seeing” the inner personalities of certain characters just as Bun “sees” them. Toss in a prime suspect with multiple personalities, and buckle up for a real mindfuck. As you may have gleaned by now, you can’t afford to nod off at any point during this film, or you could easily get lost.

While this is not your typical Hong Kong crime thriller, it contains enough requisite elements of the genre to satisfy devotees, like the inevitable denouement wherein all the principal characters converge (usually in a deserted building) and end up drawing a bead on each other in a point-blank standoff. There are some nice visual touches, especially in a nifty “hall of mirrors” climax a la The Lady from Shanghai or Enter the Dragon.

Although there isn’t a lot of “ha ha funny” inherent in the screenplay (written by co-director Ka-Fai Wai along with Kin-Yee Au), it does contain some dark comic overtones, helped along by some subtly arch undercurrents in Wan’s deadpan take on inspector Bun. Not a masterpiece, but an intriguing watch for fans of (really) off-beat whodunits.

The film is in limited release in select cities, but if your cable company provides the service, it is also currently available for home viewing on “IFC in Theaters” PPV (it’s being presented in the original Cantonese, with English subtitles).

Flaky flatfoots and daffy dicks: The Element of Crime, Angel Heart, Manhunter, Lethal Weapon, The Zero Effect, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, They Might Be Giants, I Heart Huckabees, The Big Lebowski, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, The Singing Detective (British TV), Cracker (British TV), Monk (TV), Columbo (TV).

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