Mad Detective

I went to see 'Mad Detective' (神探) tonight at the theater near my house.    I had pretty much zero knowledge of the film other than seeing a few posters and reading something about it online 6+ months ago.  All I really knew was that it had Lau Chingwan... and that's a pretty good reason to see any movie...

Its a pretty interesting idea,  definitely more than just your conventional HK crime drama.  Johnnie To is the director, Lau Chingwan plays a former detective who is pretty mentally unstable.  He has a 'Sixth Sense'-like ability to see people who aren't really there,  and this helps him solve crimes that otherwise have the police force stumped.  But the ghosts he's looking at aren't really the spirits of the dead, they also include the subconscious personalities trapped within a person (remember that old school FOX show " Herman's Head"? Its pretty much like that)...

This unique plot device is used pretty effectively,  sometimes for laughs...   Lau Chingwan does a pretty good job as the unstable detective,  he works with a cop played by Andy On (aka the artist referred to as 'The Onimal'), who doesn't know how far to trust the nut case guy who keeps talking to imaginary people...

Andy does a pretty good job with his role too.

The film is pretty entertaining for the most part, although it gets a bit confusing at times...   its rated category 3,  mostly for one really gross scene at the beginning....

Trailer is here.

I'll give it a 7/10.  Entertaining... Not very predictable either, thats important. :-D

ps - they ran two trailers before the movie.  one for Warlords,  which looks incredible dark.... i think it will be a powerful movie, but maybe won't brighten anyone's day by watching it.   ...and another one for 'Kungfu Dunk' - which comes off more and more as just a Shaolin Soccer recycle... :-(