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While not quite scaling the bonkers heights of ‘Murderer’, the latest by Dennis Law is a head-scratcher in more ways than one.
A Murder Erased
Director: Dennis Law Sau-yiu • Writer: Dennis Law Sau-yiu
Starring: Eddie Cheung Siu-fai, Timmy Hung Tin-ming, Dada Chan Ching, Tony Ho Wah-chiu, Maggie Siu Mei-kei, Joe Junior, Stephanie Che Yuen-yuen, Lam Suet, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Cheung Tat-ming
Hong Kong • 1hr 48mins
Opens Hong Kong June 16 • IIB
Grade: C-
WTF is going on in A Murder Erased | 被消失的凶案? Serious question, because Milkyway Image co-founder, producer (Election) and sometime real estate developer Dennis Law Sau-yiu’s latest is truly mind-boggling. Ostensibly a murder mystery, this is the only film in recent memory that involved an extensive business card exchange sequence and introductions, a bathroom break and a left-field detective savant breakdown of the case at hand. All unfolding in a single boardroom (that’s fine), which is obviously upstairs from a second location (a bar), all of which are in 1881 Heritage (at least it makes for an easy shooting schedule!). Kudos to Law for including the distinctly Hong Kong business card fetish, but that time could have been put to better use, you know, streamlining the narrative. What is going on?
A Murder Erased is among the year’s frontrunners for best good-bad-movie (it’s not inept enough to top the leaderboard, that would be Morbius), thanks in part to the aforementioned corporate niceties and a pair of memorable performances: Tony Ho Wah-chiu as Yung, a murder victim whose eight-year old case is being reinvestigated, and Joe Junior as Santos, the detective (prosecutor?) savant. Ho’s hysterical, face-licking, wife-beating, child-hating Yung is a marvel of OTT characterisation while… Junior? is simply so awkwardly placed you have to admire his cojones for making such an effort anyway.
Unfortunately no stills featured face-licking
After the card swap, four detectives and their boss Santos sit down to go over the particulars of Yung’s death. New to the case (I think) are Cheung (Maggie Siu Mei-kei, Port of Call) and Tong (Stephanie Che Yuen-yuen), both of whom appear to have major hate-ons for Choi (Eddie Cheung Siu-fai, Drug War), who was the original investigator. It seems he pinned the murder on the “ugly” and “mutilated” and “useless” Chiu (Timmy Hung Tin-ming, Shock Wave 2), mostly due to the fact that Chiu was friendly with Yung’s abused wife Ping (Pang Ho-cheung regular Dada Chan Ching, Missbehavior), and son – who has a hairlip, because child abuse isn’t enough. Chiu is a mild-mannered builder of funeral accessories and works quietly on the roof of the sub-divided boarding house they all live in. His ugly? He suffers from a bit of eczema.
But wait, there’s more. Everyone in the building lives in fear of Yung, because he was also a peeping tom, a serial rapist (because of course he is) and drug dealer. If you’re getting Agatha Christie Murder on the Orient Express vibes here you’re not far off. As Cheung and Tong see it, Choi – who got bumped off the drug squad for reasons – may have covered up the crime, seeing as he’s buddy buddy with a neighbourhood gangster (Lam Suet, naturally). By the time they start talking about the potential scandal of Choi’s wife’s Belle de Jour hooker hobby A Murder Erased has flown so far off the rails there’s no way to fight it. You just have to surrender to its peculiar brand of domestic thriller.
This is after the exciting card-exchanging scene
There are few words that accurately describe the nuttiness of A Murder Erased. It’s all played very straight, and with the utmost conviction; it was never boring and you certainly can’t fault the cast for not going all in, but it wasn’t really about anything and was only a middling mystery. Unsurprising, given Law’s unfortunate filmography that includes cinematic treasures Nights of a Shemale (keeping Cat III sexploitation alive!) and Vampire Warriors. There’s no clever language, no exploitation of Hong Kong’s urban landscape to tell the story. Chan in particular should be commended for trying to give a two-dimensional character that third dimension. She has a legit strong moment when she reams out Chiu, whining on their wedding day about not having expensive photographers around to take photos, for missing the point of why she married him. Chan is always a welcome presence, and she elevates Law’s incoherent script well above its station in that single scene. If she ever rolled her eyes so hard she saw the back of her head you’d never know it, unlike the preview audience, which spent the last act giggling. But like I said: it was never boring. — DEK