open and shut case Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Only the River Flows
(He Bian de Cuo Wu,
河边的错误,
lit. Mistake (or Mistakes)
By the River)

Director – Wei Shujun – 2023 – China – Cert. 15 – 101m

A cop must solve a complex murder mystery his chief believes to be an open and shut case – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 16th

A small boy with a toy gun plays cops and robbers in a deserted building, He opens doors like the protagonist of a Hollywood cop movie, looking for an armed criminal. And then he opens the door at the end of the corridor to reveal… a drop. The edge of a half demolished building, a building site with diggers.

This bravura opening is the high point of a film that combines a number of disparate elements in an attempt to construct a gritty police procedural murder mystery. However, it gets rather too caught up in many of these elements, and they swamp the narrative, which becomes incredibly tough to follow as a result. (This reviewer went back a second time to see if he liked it more on second viewing. He didn’t.)

A police chief (Tianlai Hou), who is also a keen table tennis player, encourages his force to get their merit recommendations in. This offers a fascinating glimpse into Communist China’s concept of community – you point out those who are making a useful contribution so that they can be rewarded.… Read the rest

Next Sohee
(Da-eum So-hee,
다음 소희)

Director – July Jung – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 134m

*****

A schoolgirl on an internship is appallingly exploited by her employers, and a police detective is called in to investigate – out in UK cinemas on Friday, June 14th

Here’s a film which presents a real problem for reviewers. Something monumental happens in the middle of the film which entirely changes it. It’s a little bit like the shift from the traumatic drama to the police manhunt in High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) and a bit like the infamous shower scene in the middle of Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). And yet, the film is like neither of those classics in any other way (except, perhaps, the fact that it’s a remarkable film that will leave you with an indelible impression afterwards). Still, how much can a reviewer give away without ruining the film for audiences?

It’s very much a film of two halves. The first half centres around Sohee (Kim Se-eun), a star pupil at an average secondary school. She is obsessed with dancing, specifically the kind of dance moves associated with K-pop girl- and boy-bands. Among her friends are another former intern from her school who dropped out of her intern position and now spends her evenings getting paralytically drunk.… Read the rest