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The Detective

Play trailer Poster for The Detective 2007 1h 49m Mystery & Thriller Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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Tomatometer 0 Reviews 67% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
A nearsighted detective (Aaron Kwok) encounters a wave of dead bodies while searching for a mysterious woman who may be a killer.

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member It's a detective movie, a action movie, an Aaron Kwok movie, will there be a sick movie. Last, a Pangs brothers movie, so it is also a ghost movie. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member abit hard to follow (normally common w Thailand movies i find) and graded way way to dark for my taste but still worth a watch...just might take a few to connect all the dots, names, and plot summaries. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member good gritty crime pic Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Very enjoyable and somewhat humorous murder mystery that Tan is brought in to solve. Every turn he makes the killer is one step ahead. Great characters and mystery, with lots of intrigue and humour peppered in. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member This was good, but didn't really like the ending that I will not spoil for you. One thing that bothers me about the film is that he's supposed to be losing his eye sight, but it never was an issue for him, so I don't know what the point was. I wouldn't have even known about it if I hadn't read the synopsis. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review jesse o Not that bad of a movie actually, just one that doesn't really always click in my view. I did like that the detective wasn't great at what he did. He's definitely very observant and inquisitive but he is a little dopey and that gave the film a more comical side that I wasn't really expecting out of this. Just thought it was gonna be one of those super serious mystery thrillers where having a sense of humor is akin to the world ending. The best part of the film is definitely the relationship the detective has with his best friend, a cop. This is where most of the comedy is drawn from. The murder mystery itself does a good job at keeping you intrigued throughout, even if it's not the most complex of stories. You're not watching the second coming of Seven here, after all. I think some of it feels contrived and hard to follow at times. But I'll readily admit that the subtitles sometimes go by too fast to fully read what the characters are saying. With that said, it still feels a little contrived as it borrows from many horror films. That's another thing, the film is a combination neo-noir with ghost story. If you've seen more than one Asian horror film then you could very easily predict what is going on here. I'm not the smartest guy around and I figured it out, so that must tell you how predictable the murder mystery actually is. The film does try to give Tan, or Tam, not sure what the detective's name is, Flixster says one thing and Netflix another, some "emotional" incentive for figuring out what happened to Sum, the missing woman he's looking for. His parents have been missing for thirty years and Tan, or Tam, has always had that doubt about whether or not they abandoned him. Figuring out what happened to Sum, in as contrived a way possible, led him to finding out that his parents were murdered. It was just a stupid way to close that part of the story. One case has nothing to do with the other. It doesn't really make any sense when you really think about it. They really didn't have a way to solve that part of the story, so they made it part of the Tan's main investigation. One thing I don't like about these movies is that it's all about solving the case and moving on, there's usually no incentive for the characters to solve the case other than the fact that it is their job to do so. At least this film tried to give the character an emotional incentive to want to solve it, even if he wasn't aware of the fact that solving the case would also lead him to find his parents until after the fact, but it's solved in such a hokey fashion that they may have just as well not even bothered bringing it up at all. But this movie is pretty decent all things considered. Some rough spots, as was to be expected given the rating. Can't really recommend it, but I can't condemn it so much either. This fits the definition of average down to a T. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Detective

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A nearsighted detective (Aaron Kwok) encounters a wave of dead bodies while searching for a mysterious woman who may be a killer.
Director
Oxide Chun Pang
Producer
Danny Pang, Oxide Chun Pang
Screenwriter
Thomas Pang
Production Co
Universe Entertainment, Sil-Metropole Organisation
Genre
Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language
Chinese
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 15, 2016
Runtime
1h 49m
Sound Mix
Dolby Digital