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.… Read the rest