Blind Detective

                                                           (3 subjective stars)


Yippee Ki Yay for the 14th San Diego Asian Film Festival.   An awesome variety of styles and content stretching from the Phillipines to India.

 Film trailers often, and often purposefully,  obscure the nature of a film by cherry picking the best scenes.  The trailer for Blind Detective describes a straightforward thriller, but this mad concoction comes from Hong Kong where they excel at mashing genres.  Sharply directed by Hong Kong mainstay Johnny To, Blind Detective delivers an irresistible hybrid of slapstick, screwball comedy, thriller and supernatural mystery.   The closest thing in Hollywood are tongue-in-cheek Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis films, but those offer an anemic version of Hong Kong flavor for US cineplex audiences.  Blind Detective takes delight in it's sharp turns of tone,  contrasting ghostly flashbacks with romantic bickering, interspersed with slapstick and real bloodletting.  

While both leads are superb, Sammi Cheng, as a kung fu-fighting, lovestruck Dr. Watson to the eponymous Blind Detective (Andy Lau) constantly amazes with lightning-quick changes between melodrama, comedy and outright tomfoolery.  A lovely, bemused sense of humor hovers over the film and the writing crew is due credit for the wit and restraint, as is the masterly direction.   Oddly, the cinematography varies from excellent interiors to some drab location shooting.  A tiny bit long at 150 minutes,  Blind Detective is still wildly entertaining and much of that credit is due the editor. 

If Hong Kong filmmaking in all it's riot of fusion appeals to you,  you'll savor Blind Detective.

The Counselor

First, a disclaimer.  I viewed this film under duress, not as a first on my list.  Hope to put  up  something more interesting soon.  SD Asian Film Festival begins early in November and includes the promising Hong Kong thriller Blind Detective.

The script for The Counselor is direct from Cormac McCarthy and many of the tropes from No Country For Old Men resurface.  Fate and Greed trudge mercilessly through the film.  I guess No Country worked because McCarthy wrote the book, but the Coens wrote the script and the pretensions were minimized.   The Counselor is sharp in fits, but the rhythm stutters badly as the actors choke on portentous sawdust.  I'm also going to mark McCarthy an old school sexist, whose female characters hew to the virginal or the viperous.   Cameron Diaz, wearing overtly sinister makeup,  gets the unpleasant task of embodying the highly sexual and (coincidentally) scheming female lead.  Javier Bardem as a mellow, reflective drug dealer achieves the only human, and humorous characterization in the film.  Michael Fassbender is sadly wasted.  Wait for Netflix and then be sure to be multitasking.