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.

politic1983 July was Johnnie To month. This time, however, it is a film I have actually seen before. Viewing it on its UK release, I could confirm that it was indeed worth the few HK$ that I paid for it, but still took approximately 51 weeks to get round to watching it. 'Mad Detective' - a co-directing with Wai Ka Fai - is a little different from other Johnnie To works that I have seen; being less about the violence and conflict within power struggles and more around character development.Bun is a tad…well, mad. Forced out of professional detectiveing, he answers the call of Ho (Andy On), a younger detective out-of-luck in a case involving the disappearance of a police officer 18 months previous, and puts his thinking ear on to aid the detective now in possession of his old police pistol.But as previously stated: Bun is mad. Claiming to see people's inner- selves, he will see multiple personalities in individuals to our one, and is 'aided' by his wife, who left him many moons ago. It's not long before Ho realises his mistake and sees why he was kicked-out of the police originally, despite his knack for solving crimes involving suitcases.Starting off with comedic moments – with multiple personalities visiting the little boys' room together at once – the film becomes more tense as it progresses towards the climax, as everyone's inner-self is revealed and the truth uncovered.Lau Ching Wan does a good job in the lead role, as do the make-up department in making his hair just messy enough to create the illusion of madness and Johnnie To and collaborator Wai Ka Fai shows he can make a film a little different from his norm, with some nice camera-work for an 'Enter the Dragon' like ending.Kitano's 'Violent Cop', To's 'Mad Detective', I am now left to watch William Lustig's undoubted 1988 classic 'Maniac Cop'.www.politic1983.blogspot.com

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU When one detective is crazy and the other one is a greedy gangster in the disguise of a detective and the third one is a bitch that does not want to be dominated by her crazy man and the fourth one is a frightened little boy in the disguise of a courageous crime solver, you can be sure nothing is simple and everything is definitely twisted, distorted, warped and a few other limping true menaces. And only one will have to survive to clean up the snake nest, and only one will survive. Then the rest is anecdotic. But I like this detective clairvoyant when you bury him alive. I must admit it is funny to follow the intricate and completely messed up chase after an Indian criminal who will be the first one to be killed though he probably never killed anyone. You need eggs to break if you want to make an omelet, don't you? The eggs are of course always innocent even if they come from the rear end of some chicken or rather hen. A film that is more funny than frightening but maybe that is due to the fact that we do not have a dubbed version, only a subtitled one.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

edchin2006 This detective story doesn't quite match the C+ Detective film. A bumbling detective may not be as successful as an insane one, but bumbling makes for more amusing and unpredictable situations.The idea that an insane person can have quite penetrating insights is not a new concept - after all, insane people aren't stupid; they're just crazy.As for the whodunit and how, it was annoyingly predictable.However, this film is worth watching for the interesting photography which reveals the altered perception of reality experienced by the "best" detective. The suggestion of how insanity might be manifest in an individual is fascinating. The inter-cutting is confusing at first, but the scenes with the mirrors reveal how things appear to our "best" detective.