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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't Believe the Hype

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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

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.

After 7 years waiting, Johnnie To finally successfully reunited Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau as a couple again, which with no doubt, worth the weight of fans' expectation. I personally is a big fan of Sammi Cheng since I was in junior school, she technically 'disappear' like about 5 or 6 years from Hong Kong entertainment with all the ups and downs of her life buzzing beneath paparazzi's papers. Just about when people getting to forget her voice and smile, she suddenly came back to life with eye-catching Blind Detective.Being one of the top directors in Hong Kong showbiz, Johnnie To's definitely smart. He produced Drug War last year using Louis Koo and another mainland Chinese actor Sun Honglei as leading actors, which in my perspective, somehow lost the eye-catching element in the first place, though the story is not bad, and actually, it's really a nice film, even better than Blind Detective. Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau, the magic couple in screen lightening all chemistries between them on fire, make this movie on the right track of being a huge success both in box office and in the acting itself. Sammi Cheng plays her usual role- blur girl and effortlessly presenting a cute character, while Andy Lau jumps out of his comfort zone to play a retired blind detective who majors a foodie, instead of a disciplined police officer, both of them make the characters alive as requested. Though Andy Lau joins some other terrible movies these years, such as Switch, this one isn't one of them. He totally deserves applause as much as he's in Running Out of Time and Infernal Affairs. And I agree with other reviewers that the plot sag for this film is the unrequited love of Andy Lau towards the tango dancer who featured by mainland Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan, this scene is flavorless no matter how gorgeous Gao Yuanyuan is. I can understand why Johnnie To adds this arc as it's tailor-in for the mainland China market (the same reason using Guo Tao as the police officer, who is also from mainland China), however, I cannot deny the fact that these irrelevant characters dragged down the whole level of the movie a little bit. As a fan of traditional Hong Kong production movies, I really hate it that every single movie has to have a mainland Chinese actor/actress nowadays, and the worst part is, almost every one of these characters seems to be ponderous, irrelevant, abrupt and if not for the marketing purpose, they will definitely not exist at all. All in all, the movie is good and above the average level, comparing to other movies in the cinema which are completely nonsense to me.

Johnston (Andy Lau) is the blind detective and Ho Ka Tung (Sammi Cheng) is his side- kick. Due to a case of retina displacement, Johnston is blind but being blind has honed his sixth sense - imagination. He picks up cold police cases which offer monetary rewards to solve. Ka Tung needs his help to solve the mysterious disappearance of her best friend back in 1997. Together they form a cute partnership where Johnston used her to solve his cold cases, while Ka Tung longs for the day the mystery of her missing friend is solved and that Johnston will finally 'see' her. Earlier this year I have already seen Johnnie To's Drug War. Though excellent, it feels politically sanitized and doesn't quite fit into To's usual oeuvre. Blind Detective is a definite 'welcome back' film from him but sadly it isn't in the gangster vein. It's To doing rom-com again. Lately To's rom-coms are always a miss for me but this one has a detective procedural pulse which I always love. The last time Johnnie To did a detective genre film was Mad Detective and I totally adored it. The final scene of a guy experimentally placing his gun in different spots still sent a glee to my face. Last week we saw the trailer for Blind Detective and both my wife and I say almost in unison "must see". However there was one moment in the trailer that made us go WTF - Andy Lau driving blind, but more of that in a while. We love the movie but seriously we are quite biased towards procedurals. The detective portions here work like a charm. We are shown the smoking guns. Then doubts are cast to make us re-think everything. Everything is done right, nothing preposterous, everything is logical and never too much of a stretch. We love the scenes where we are shown the mind space of Johnston where he deconstructs the crime scene, complete with victims 'talking' to him. Brilliantly done. I didn't see Andy Lau in Switch which I heard is a terrible film but his acting here is excellent. I have seen Tony Leung act blind in Silent War and it's very interesting to see two different craft in action. Leung does it serious while Lau does it in a comedic manner. There are some cool stuff that Lau do that entrench his prowess in our consciousness... very clever work. The blind driving part also works remarkably well and never ridiculous because that is exactly how a blind person would drive, plus To uses the sequence to make them confess their feelings. There is also the rom-com angle which I feel To just managed to pull it off through the palatable chemistry between Lau and Cheng. Cheng as usual acts as the blur one (十三 点) which she always managed to pull off convincingly. Lau and Cheng's partnership is like Hank and Ryan's, a sure win. How Lau and Cheng play off each other is quite funny. I also love how the tone of the movie can switch from slapstick rom-com to all seriousness within a heartbeat. Over a dim sum supper, we pulled apart the movie (sometimes these sessions are more fun than the movie ). We didn't like Johnston's unrequited love arc which made the middle act sag. We took that arc out in our heads and it definitely firmed the movie up a lot. We had no doubt why this arc is in there - it features a China actress and it's tailor-in for the China market. All in all, a nice flick. I love watching movies that entertain and make my mind work. This one does that for us.