Let the Game Begin
Director Jacky Gan drops the first SEA Hellhole thriller of 2025 with the icing on the ‘Manslaughter’ series cake. For now.
Octopus with broken Arms
Director: Jacky Gan • Writers: Chen Sicheng, Hu Xiaonan, Li Peng, Wu Wenjing
Starring: Xiao Yang, Tong Liya, Duan Yihong, Cya Liu, Jack Kao
China • 1hr 50mins
Opens Hong Kong Jan 16 • IIB
Grade: C-
Ooh, baby, the Chinese-but-not-China Anonymous Southeast Asian Hellhole Thriller™ is coming out the gate hot in 2025. The latest in the string of overly labyrinthine and deeply awful mystery-thrillers is Jacky Gan Jianyu’s Octopus with Broken Arms | 誤殺3, the “3” in the Chinese title indicating its status as an entry in the Manslaughter series started in 2019 with Sheep Without a Shepherd (by Sam Quah, who gave us A Place Called Silence – twice) and Fireflies in the Sun (Dai Mo). The trio, kind of an anthology linked by returning star Xiao Yang, has made decent bank, with each film more ludicrous than its predecessor. This performed well enough at the box office at home in China at the end of the year, so a 誤殺4 named after some kind of fauna isn’t out of the question.
Possibly the *chef’s kiss of the trilogy as it stands, Octopus has roughly 23 endings, two (!) credit scroll ballads and an entire screen of “actor management” names and titles for every major player in the film. If you’ve seen Go For Broke, Lost in the Stars, Last Suspect, No More Bets or any of the endless stream of histrionic crime dramas proliferating in this cottage industry you’ll know to expect twist upon surprise upon coincidence, internal retconning and review – in case you slept through any of it – a convoluted revenge narrative, bad dubbing, some painfully ripe performances, dodgy morality and a disregard for logic that is truly alarming. Looks like Thailand’s tourism agency is going to have to funnel more money into its image rehabilitation programme.
“How did I get here?”
Cosmetics titan and single dad Zheng Bingrui (Xiao) throws a birthday party for his daughter Tingting (Ye Quanxi), which ends in disaster when she’s kidnapped from the back yard, right under the nose of her teacher Li Huiping (Tong Liya, Black Dog), who’s there because… reasons. On the case immediately is Anti-Kidnapping Group (seriously?) leader Zhang Jingxian (Duan Yihong, The Battle at Lake Changjin) and his squad, all of whom immediately suspect the gardener, Shi Fu’an (Feng Bing). But it’s not the gardener, and soon Zheng is getting phone calls from the kidnapper, sending him all over God’s green earth – AKA Bangkok? – like he’s on a videogame quest, which they’re also livestreaming. Of course, everyone is watching the drama unfold, and getting a play-by play from the world’s worst news anchor (Amy Lo Wai-man). Then there’s another kid in a warehouse and Zheng needs to take him to the pier, and he’s triggered by memories of his orphan’s childhood running from Manga (where, now?), but his unhinged henchman Wu Dayi (Wang Longzheng, High Forces) saves him. Li is kind of shocked, but she insists on seeing this through with him; Tingting vanished on her watch, dammit! Meanwhile, Zhang has two hardass bosses, Daymond (Taiwanese veteran baddie Jack Kao Kuo-hsin) and Mendoza (Terence Yin Chi-wai) – because now we’re in Mexico City? – that want him to find this kid ’cause daddy is rich, and the public wants an inquest into the shady AF 619 Incident that killed a bunch of refugee children on a tanker. Which is still sitting in the ocean. Oh, and Ya Yin (Cya Liu Yase, I Did It My Way) is a grieving mother who lost her daughter in 619 and she’s buddies with Fu’an and his wife Tinaya (Zhou Chuchu) and Fuck. This.
The only thing that will get you through Octopus with Broken Arms is playing the Chinese-but-not-China Anonymous Southeast Asian Hellhole Thriller™ game and trying to guess if you can figure out which cop is rotten, what the revenge plot is, who the secret revenge collaborator in the police is, and which one has a theatrical background that will help everyone else pull off the brilliant plan. There’s some blather in on-screen text about child trafficking and modern slavery that clangs given the gravity of those issues and the utter inanity of Octopus, and don’t even start me on the xenophobic messaging; human trafficking it seems is a purely European/North American problem. Oh, I lied. Another thing that might get you through is the fact that, despite Gan’s pedestrian direction, the film is at least well produced and polished. If it looked like shit that would just be adding insult to injury.