Detective vs Sleuths 
神探大战 「San taam daai zin」
Release Date: July 21st, 2022
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Wai Ka-Fai
Writer: Ryker Chan, Lu Jia, Li Jie (Screenplay),
Starring: Sean Lau, Charlene Choi, Raymond Lam, Carmen Lee, Kai Tan,
A serial killer thriller meets explosive Hong Kong action in Detective vs Sleuths, the latest work from veteran director Wai Ka-Fai and his long-time favourite star Sean Lau.
A murder spree strikes Hong Kong. The victims vary but the crimes are attributed to a masked vigilante group known as “The Sleuths.” Their calling card is leaving the crime scenes daubed with graffiti of police case file numbers from cold cases or cases with wrongful arrests or wrongful killings. According to The Sleuths, the present-day murder victims were the real criminals that the Hong Kong police failed to bring to justice.
Trying to put a stop to the extrajudicial killings are the OCTB taskforce but their investigations pale in comparison with those of disgraced ex-detective named Lee Jun (Sean Lau), a man who had previously suffered a mental breakdown after coming into conflict with OCTB superiors and been booted off the force. Homeless and half-crazed, he now has visions of murder victims, both past and future, all connected to the vigilante case. His most useful ability is seeing someone just before they get whacked by The Sleuths.
He faces hostility from all ex-colleagues except one, Chan Yee (Charlene Choi), an inspector in OCTB and also someone who survived a serial-killer case that The Sleuths are very much interested in exhuming. She works with Lee to track The Sleuths but the two uncover that the vigilante group may be on to something and corruption may lie at the heart of the Hong Kong police…
Wai Ka-Fai’s Detective vs. Sleuths is effectively a re-tread of his earlier film Mad Detective (2007) (his collaboration with Johnny To). Watching this will make viewers experience their own supernatural feelings via severe Deja Vu as both films feature Sean Lau playing a detective with a screw loose. Comparing the two… the quality of this dynamic varies.
In both films, his character has their detective abilities enhanced by being able to see visions and using them to crack cold cases and police malpractice. In Mad Detective, seeing different personalities reveals a killer with Multiple Personality Disorder (don’t worry, not a huge spoiler) while also allowing for the visualisation of character development. In Detective versus Sleuths, it is more a sort of premonition of people who are about to die, thus allowing plot movement, red herrings, and backstory/exposition to fill in any gaps in a loosely told story. It brilliantly sets up thrilling moments of racing against time to save someone but comes at the expense of emotional investment in the characters we follow.
Again, while both films feature Lau impressively playing a wounded character putting together a puzzle-piece police investigation, Mad Detective finds more time to spend with people outside of their jobs. This allows it to establishes a space for viewers to develop more empathy and to become more invested in their work. Thus, when the film closes on its dark ending, the impact is harder while the ending for Sleuths feels… pat as it ties up the fates of a much larger cast with no room for contemplation.
Where Detectives vs Sleuths excels is sliding between bombastic action set pieces. These are genuinely exciting moments, especially the marketplace shootout midway through the film. I would rate these sequences as high as something recent like Raging Fire or something a bit older like Time and Tide as different weapons are used, the verticality of Hong Kong’s architecture and its warrens of streets, too. Furious editing takes us to different locations and groups of people rushing around to create kinetic action scenes. It made me lean in on the screen to watch how everyone collides and the dazzling fireworks that erupt in the colourful locations. as guns and tempers flare up Indeed, the visuals and technical aspects of the film are all first-rate and these keep the film entertaining as we wait for the story to finish and all secrets to be revealed.
While I may have been harsh on Sleuth‘s story, that only speaks to how affecting and impressive I found Mad Detective. Other audiences found Sleuth‘s highly entertaining which is shown by how it won big at the 2023 Hong Kong Film Awards, netting Wai Ka-Fai Best Director, the film’s writers Best Screenplay and Sean Lau Best Actor. The latter is highly justified because his muscular performance makes the lead character really propel the film forward and he has a good antagonist whose reveal is quite satisfying although I suspect many in the audience will be able to figure out who it is like the good movie sleuth’s they are likely to be after watching so many Wai Ka-Fai police thriller and procedurals.