Mad Detective (2007, Johnnie To & Wai Ka Fai) (Patreon)

48/100

Both too much and too little going on here, in my opinion. For one thing, crazy cop's Will Graham-style method of entering a criminal's psyche barely dovetails with the madness (?) of his literally seeing people's "inner selves" (much less with his penchant for self-mutilation); the case he solves in the prologue, for example, involves only the former, and honestly it's all downhill from the hilarious moment that sees Bun, having been tossed down multiple flights of stairs in a small suitcase (like the victim, apparently), gets unzipped, clambers out, and announces, apropos of nothing else we've seen or heard: "The killer is the ice cream shop owner." My real stumbling block, though, were the prime suspect's seven ostensible alters, ranging from a severe-looking businesswoman to good ol' Lam "Fatso"* Suet. It's confusing both visually and thematically, especially since none of them seem to manifest in Chi-wai's actual bland personality. Admittedly, it doesn't help that I suffer from a form of faceblindness w/r/t many Asian actors—wasn't clear to me for a while whether Bun's imaginary wife and real ex-wife are played by the same woman (nope)—but apart from the mild comedy of seeing a dude's mirror reflection represented by a coed, multigenerational posse, seven in no way seems superior to one. Also didn't really buy that Chi-wai would murder his partner just to avoid a demerit for losing his gun. The whole movie seems kinda half-assed, frankly, which was how I often felt about To back then (didn't become a fan until Drug War, though I then went back and discovered Don't Go Breaking My Heart); this is almost exactly the same rating I gave to Blind Detective, in fact. At least there's eventually an explanation for Bun appearing to have two intact ears after we see him cut one of them off at the outset. That drove me nuts for a good half hour. 

* Out of curiosity, I just checked Lam's IMDb page to see how many of his characters are named Fatso, Fatty, or Fat [Something]. Answer: At least 21.