ChicRawIdol
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Korto Malteze
Before this I haven't watched a single movie for a while (for about 4 months) and I decided to give an opportunity to Asian cinematography. And I certainly did not regret. This movie isn't as complex as other crime movies but it contains great amount of drama and humor. This "weird" detective is one of the best roles I have seen in a while and in my opinion he carries this whole movie to the next level. If you want to give a chance to Asian cinematography I would highly recommend you this movie.
Akhil Balachandran
Inspector Bun has a weird style of solving crimes and he has the ability to read inner personalities of people. Due to this behavior, he gets fired from the force. One day, Inspector Ho approaches Bun to help him in an ongoing case about a missing police officer. It's a movie that plays with your mind and force you to keep guessing throughout the movie. Ching Wan Lau plays the weird Bun character and brings all the emotions that the character demands. The concept of the movie was very simple and a thorough characterizations helps to an ending that is definitely worth the wait. Overall, it's a highly recommended for those who are looking for a serious crime thriller movie.
robert-temple-1
This film is certainly the opposite of the usual detective film. Instead of the detective catching the bad guys as a result of being logical, analytical, and clever, the lead character in this film solves crimes by psychic and irrational means. That in itself is a fascinating premise, and if this film had not gone so over the top in places, and had been more subtle, it could have been a very profound film which explored all sorts of interesting implications for the detection of crime. However, the psychic cop is just too bonkers, and extremely annoying. The intention seems to have been to portray him as disturbingly autistic, and to go for some laughs as well. I absolutely hated the Swedish TV series THE BRIDGE (2011) because the lead detective was a woman who was so extremely autistic that the series was intensely annoying and watching it became pointless. This film suffers from the same syndrome, though to a lesser extent. I also think of A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) in which a genius is portrayed as an annoying autistic person. Why is it that today so many movies can only portray people who are more intelligent than others by grovelling with apology to the audience for daring to show the mental superiority of character by saying: 'but don't worry, everyone, they are really crazy, and their genius is a pathological aberration, so you don't need to feel inferior.' We certainly do live in an age which could well be called The Triumph of the Lowest Common Denominator. (I say that despite the fact that, education having long since collapsed, there are probably few people left alive apart from professional mathematicians who even know what a denominator is.) In a moronic age, the only genius which is permissible is truly that which is apologetically portrayed as being outrageously insane. Then we can all feel better, can't we? Relaxing in a hot bath of ignorance can be blissful, as we drift into decline as a civilization.
iamnotazombie
City on Fire, The Infernal Affairs trilogy, One Night in Mongkok, Hard Boiled, The Killer, Bullet in the head, Election and A Better Tomorrow all of these films are classics of the Hong Kong crime thriller genre, but all are fairly typical in their execution - this is where Mad Detective comes in.I've read a lot of press for this film, press which basically states that this film has carved out a niche all of its own. Now upon reading this, it gave the impression that it was one of two things: a pretentious load of rubbish or an ambitious failure, luckily its neither of these things.What makes this film different is the lead character (Detective Bun), someone who claims they can see people's inner personalities or inner ghosts. It's never determined whether he can see such things or it's the visual representation of his madness, either way such an ambiguous concept is a good thing, if it was confirmed to be one thing or the other it would damage the tone of the film.The story of Mad Detective revolves around an 8 month old case to find a missing police officer and his gun, a case which a former employee of Detective Bun's openly asks for help from the Mad Detective. He asks as Bun has been fired for literally being the mad detective, it'll make sense when you watch it.What follows is a fairly typical police crime thriller, outside of Bun's world, anyway. On the face of it, mad Detective is a simple tale in which Bun and his junior officer are investigating what has happened to a missing officer and who is responsible for his disappearance. This is punctuated by certain realities of Bun's life and the reality of his madness in everyday situation which helps flesh out the story considerably.But the investigation is where the story lies, the main narrative of the story focuses on the confusion of whether Bun is solving the crime correctly or whether it is just his madness leading him in a certain direction - something which pervades the junior officers every thought (after a certain point). Yes, this is confusing, but at the same time it's brilliant, much in the way that the final few scenes of fight club & memento change the entire meaning of the film. That for me is what I want from a film, an ending which shocks and entertains in equal measures, and better than most other contemporary films.So given the inclusion of Bun's madness it does, as certain film critics have claimed create a niche unto itself. One thing is for sure you won't have seen many films like this, I certainly haven't. A truly brilliant, rewarding film, even if its demands quite a bit patience.
