Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

urthpainter If you like Johnnie To and Chinese cinema, stop reading now and watch this movie! Blind Detective is overt, obtuse, in your face entertainment. The story surrounds one missing persons investigation, but many mysteries are solved during the duration, none of it understated.Reading the movie's plot summery, even I was slow to finally watch, but I should have known better! No quick description can prepare you for what this movie actually brings to the table. The main character's blindness is captured in a full visual manner, including his interaction with environments, and 'inner eye' sequences by which crimes are solved. The leading lady commissions our hero to help solve a personal mystery, but she is also an energetic detective in training who studies his crime solving process. In ways the story is very predictable, but the fun is in moment to moment details, and the absurdity of how the characters behave. Though Chinese, the loud, exaggerated acting has an almost Japanese flavor.I can understand why many people would have a hard time with Blind Detective, and would view the experience as contrived. To's movies are very stylized, and like many fans, I love the open admission of film making he brings to the theater. His work is about the medium, like abstract painting, or wood fired ceramic.There is very little down time with action, humor, intrigue, and lots of eating. Chinese cuisine provides a metaphor for the entire point of this film. Spicy awesome'ness abounds!Acting and directing is over the top exaggerated, but the camera, sound, and lighting is more subtle and traditional. This combination captures the action perfectly. This is perhaps a Johnnie To signature, and something many western directors can learn from. Film does not have to be all one thing, all one style - mixing stylization in one area, but remaining traditional in another provides juxtaposition and contrast that is a joy as a viewer to behold.If you have seen To's movies, this is another fantastic entry to his resume. Anyone new to his brand of film making should enter with an open mind, and not allow expectation to ruin the experience. Have fun!over the top fun 8 out of 10

q-60 This film can't make up its mind if it wants to be a featherweight romantic comedy or a Seven/Silence of the Lambs-style dark thriller.Without any funny jokes or a credible or even remotely interesting villain it succeeds as neither. Add an unthinkably daft twist ending and you end up with a very confused mess. If it's creepy, it's not in a good way - the creepiness lies in trying to figure out how Johnny To could possibly think it a good idea to put a subplot about a cannibal serial killer of young women in a slapstick romantic comedy.It's possible something got lost in translation, but I really can't imagine what kind of cultural insight would make this make sense.

gkc-kelvin Nearly 10 years after their last movie together, Andy and Sammi reunite along with Johnnie To once again to form what the media has already described as a "Solid Trio", bound to create a smashing movie hit that can wow its audience and effortlessly dominate the box office for as long as it screens. The movie centers around Ho, a female cop who joined the force after her schoolmate went missing back in the day. She seeks the help of a detective, Johnston, who, while blind, was an intuitive man capable of puzzle-piecing his imagination to recreate crime scenes. The movie's heavy play on humor from the beginning was like setting a mood for the movie, especially in the scenes where Johnston tried to reenact crime scenes with Ho. And yet, amazingly, it's the perfect movie for sick people like me who at the same time crave for scenes of violence. The even mix between such intensity and light-heartedness throughout the film must have been hard to achieve. While this probably isn't anything new to Hong Kong cinema, it seems Johnnie To had taken the genre in his masterful hands and made it his own.Yet, the movie wasn't all perfect. While the funny bits had kept me well-entertained and interested, the monotonous non-progress of the storyline seemed to have done otherwise. Just saying, I might have skipped a scene or two if I had a remote. I was at the edge of my seat, eagerly waiting for the story to get good, but it never really got there. Simply put, the movie should have been a lot shorter. I should imagine a lot more could have been done with a story that had a concept as great as this. And I shan't deny that there came a point of time where I decided Johnston was basically a scientist hypothesizing a million possibilities and spinning his own yarn just to prove those hypotheses true. It just soon began to feel as though Johnston was telling a story; a story that he wrote. Many reviews that I have read have briefly criticized Andy and Sammi for overacting their roles in many parts of the movie. I, on the other hand, have a different take on this. Obviously, this isn't one of those typical cop movies that Hong Kong cinema produces hundreds of, every year. Unlike those movies, "Blind Detective" had no endless gun shots, long-winded crook chases, or all-of-a-sudden-everyone-knows-kungfu stints. The overacting was necessary, in my opinion, to have the audience bear in mind the unique atmosphere and essence of the film; that it's not just crime; that it's the awkward get-together of Ho and Johnston that results in a show so full of fun to watch. Need I even comment on the incomparable chemistry that's oh so perfect between Andy and Sammi?As a close follower of Sammi's film work, especially in the recent years. I can easily contrast "Blind Detective" with "Lady Cop & Papa Crook". Thankfully, and fortunately, I'd see the former 10 times with 10 paid tickets before I'd see the latter once with a free one. "Blind Detective" was a perfect showcase of Sammi's acting skills. The versatility of the mini role-plays she performs within the movie just proves that she is no ordinary actress. And that just kicks people wondering why she hasn't gotten a Hong Kong Film Award yet. Her commendable skills, paired with Andy Lau's excellent enactment of an intuitive blind detective, which everyone in the cinema had probably mentally applauded for, possibly made the movie a hundred times better than it would have been.In a nutshell, it was definitely worth a watch. Just focus on the humor and don't let the draggy-ness of the film get to you. If you're not gonna see it it for the story, then see it for the cute couple. Just Andy and Sammi alone might have made the ticket worth its price.

moviexclusive 'Blind Detective's' pedigree reads like a match made in cinematic heaven - on one hand, it boasts the reunion of Hong Kong's golden screen couple, Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, after almost a decade; on the other, its creative team made up of Johnnie To and Wai Kar Fai is arguably one of the most successful partnerships in the Hong Kong film industry. Yet it is precisely because of the latter reason that one should know better than to expect a conventional movie - after all, neither To nor Wai have ever liked to be associated with just perfunctory.And 'Blind Detective' bears that similarly uncharacteristic trait, defying easy genre characterisation by treading right on the middle line between a slapstick rom-com and a crime thriller. It is a very fine balance no doubt, one that proves too tricky from time to time even for a director of auteur status like To, so criticism that the movie is tonally all over the place is somewhat not unfounded. That doesn't mean however that it isn't entertaining; on the contrary, it pulses with its own eccentric beat, and the more you get used to its offbeat tone, the faster you'll begin to appreciate its own unique charm.To introduces us and his odd couple to each other with an acid attack case that both Lau's retinally-damaged former top cop Johnston and Cheng's junior crime squad cop Ho are on the trail of. Turns out that since losing his sight four years earlier, Johnston has been using his other senses and formidable deductive powers to solve crimes solely for the purpose of earning the associated bounties. Having made acquaintance, Ho engages Johnston to do a little sleuthing for her - more specifically, to assist her in finding a childhood friend with a tragic past called Minnie who disappeared many years ago. Under the guise of working more closely with her, Johnston moves into Ho's apartment - though an earlier scene which demonstrates his solitude living alone suggests that he wants company too.While Minnie's case frames the nature of their interaction, almost half the movie is in fact spent on other cold cases that Johnston is still chasing the bounty for - and like Ho, we too are taken on a couple of these bizarre diversions. One particularly outlandish case has Johnston attempting to piece together a murder scene in a morgue with some generous help from Ho, the re-enactments played for broader-than-broad laughs with a hammer, a motorbike helmet and a TV set thrown in. Johnston's technique is to attentively reconstruct the crime scene, which given his disability, makes Ho a useful companion to participate in these elaborate and occasionally over-the-top sequences.At least for the middle section, Wai's script tends to meander, not least for the fact that it tries to add in some unnecessary subplots including Johnston's crush on a tango dancer (Gao Yuanyuan) and his rivalry with Szeto. Only towards the last third does Johnston get down to business on Minnie's case, the trail of clues leading them to a love triangle in Zhuhai involving a pregnant woman (Eileen Yeow) and a teppanyaki chef (Ziyi) as well as to a psychotic serial killer responsible for the deaths of several missing young women over the past few years.Even then, those familiar with To's rigour in shooting well-detailed procedurals like this year's 'Drug War' may not be used to what appears to be a lack of storytelling discipline here. To plays it fast and loose, seemingly reluctant to exert tighter directorial rein over Wai's slackly constructed plotting; yet seen through a less critical perspective, To in fact gives as much, if not more, weight to the relationship between Johnston and Ho as to the central mystery, each of the distractions in fact deepening their quirky but no doubt romantic attraction.Just as in most Wai films, there is a moral at the end when the truth about Minnie's disappearance is revealed, a cautionary lesson if you will about the consequences of being blinded by one's own stubbornness. Viewed through this lens, Johnston and Ho's earlier encounters gain some meaningful significance - ultimately, both Johnston and Ho have also been guilty of refusing to let go of their respective baggage from the past, and it is with each other that they learn to recognise the importance of moving on. Yet it is a point that may be lost on many audiences, who are likely to be frustrated by the alternating mix of madcap laughs and overdone acting.Yes, while there is little doubt of the palpable chemistry between Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng, both are guilty of crossing the line into histrionics at times. Lau is arguably best during his character's quieter and more introspective moments, in particular when he visualises himself communicating with victim and suspect alike in dreamlike fashion; unfortunately, his real-life interactions tend to consist of him flailing and shouting exaggeratedly. Cheng is thankfully more subdued most of the time, and amply demonstrates her gift for physical comedy especially during the crime scene re-enactments. It's hard to imagine any other screen couple in the roles of Johnston and Ho, which is another way of saying that the movie probably would not work with someone else in Andy and Sammi's shoes. And by virtue of that, this genre mash-up is unequivocally their show, which in the hands of Johnnie To and Wai Kar-Fai, is quite a different creature from the usual Hong Kong comedies or for that matter detective thrillers. The combination of both makes for a deliberately uncharacteristic tone that is both weird and wacky, but there is still an undeniably idiosyncratic charm about it that deserves an appreciative audience.www.moviexclusive.com