The Bullet Vanishes

[GeneChing]

This opens tomorrow through AMC (Wanda). I caught the trailer during Dark Knight Rises (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62583), which I saw at an AMC. I'm not sure how many theaters it will actually be shown in, but it's opening here the same day that AMC is showing Flying Swords at Dragon Gate (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57723) for a one-week run in 3D IMAX at 15 theaters


The Bullet Vanishes - 消失的子弹 (2012) Trailer
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92-NIbTBhGE)


Film Review: The Bullet Vanishes (http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/reviews/specialty-releases/e3i30403e970028a93dd8ec5620ea71d49d)
Police track "phantom bullet" murders in this moody, twisty period mystery set in a Chinese munitions factory.
Aug 29, 2012
-By Daniel Eagan

http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/photos/stylus/1362108-Bullet_Vanishes_Md.jpg
Science meets magic in The Bullet Vanishes, a surprising, well-crafted mystery set in 1930s China. Strong acting and special effects make this the equal of many Hollywood offerings, but the film's tricky plotting and assured direction set it above most genre exercises. This Hong Kong–China coproduction opened strong in Asian markets.

Two policemen are assigned to a puzzling case involving murders in an enormous munitions plant. Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse) likes to think of himself as "the fastest gun in Tiancheng," but he also dislikes the city's rulers and has a soft spot for its underclass. The tentative Song Donglu (Lau Ching-wang) is a more scientific detective, testing theories on himself if necessary.

Factory owner Ding (Liu Kai-chi) uses intimidation to keep his workers in line, leading to a public Russian-roulette "suicide" of a woman from the provinces. Subsequent deaths from "phantom bullets" which are never recovered suggest that the factory has been cursed. One worker is found dead in a locked room, questioning Song's belief that there are no perfect crimes, only "perfect scapegoats."

Suspects become victims as the investigation proceeds, and the cops themselves fall prey to attacks. Song and Guo treat each other warily, both aware that their police force is riddled with corruption. They pick up clues from Little Lark (Yang Mi), a fortune-teller in the red-light district, and fight off threats from Wang Hai (Wang Ziyi), Ding's enforcer.

The Bullet Vanishes takes place just as China is embracing industrialization, which means Song often has to fight old beliefs before his colleagues will accept his deductions. (Part of the fun of the film is how primitive police methods appear to us today.)

Because it is set in the past, The Bullet Vanishes can be blunt about political corruption. Ding's workers are basically slaves, the police are only concerned with protecting the wealthy, and the denizens of the red-light district where much of the story unfolds have to scramble to survive. It's easy to connect the story to Foxconn workers, or the latest Chinese legal scandal.

Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies are obvious models for The Bullet Vanishes. Like Ritchie, Lo Chi-leung shifts back and forth in time, replaying scenes from different viewpoints. He jumps from one storyline to another, and uses props and action to define characters. It's an approach that will be familiar to viewers here, although the dialogue is delivered so quickly that it can be hard to keep up with subtitles.

Hong Kong star Lau Ching-wang is excellent as Song Donglu (he played a similar role in Johnnie To's Mad Detective), while Nicholas Tse seems more engaged than in some of his recent films. The supporting characters might seem broad by Western standards, and a few of the scenes feel overwrought. But, on the whole, this is an intelligent, well-made mystery that will satisfy fans of the genre.

[GeneChing]

No stats on how big a distribution this is getting, but it's probably only a few dozen theaters nationally.


The Bullet Vanishes: Film Review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/bullet-vanishes-film-review-366823)
9:29 AM PDT 8/30/2012 by Frank Scheck

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/08/bullet_vanishes.jpg

The Bottom Line
This Chinese period thriller set in 1930's Shanghai boasts a fiendishly clever plot and gorgeous production elements.

Cast
Nicholas Tse, Lau Ching-wan, Yang Mi

Director
Lo Chi-leung

The stylish Chinese thriller set in 1930s Shanghai centers on a series of murders in which the bullets seem to disappear after being used.

A stylish period thriller set in 1930’s Shanghai, The Bullet Vanishes is one of the more striking Chinese imports from the fledgling distribution company China Lion. This detective story about a series of murders in which the bullets seem to disappear after being used bears no small debt to Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes flicks. But its clever plotting and beautifully designed production more than merit its trip to the West.

Said murders are being committed in, where else, a bullet factory, led by a venal boss and his vicious henchman who once forced a female worker suspected of stealing to play Russian roulette, with tragic results. Now her ghost may be exacting revenge, although cerebral-minded detective Song (Lau Ching-wan) and his partner Guo (Nicholas Tse) look for a less supernatural explanation in an investigation that includes such fascinating scientific experiments as the testing of ice bullets that melt after impact.

Viewers may ultimately become lost in the overly complicated labyrinth of a narrative, not to mention dialogue so fast and furious that one needs to be a speed reader merely to keep up with the subtitles. But director Lo Chi-leung also includes enough impeccably staged action set pieces and elaborate shootouts to entertain viewers who may have given up trying to follow everything that’s going on.

Providing some emotional heft to the proceedings is a social consciousness that is particularly evident in the character of Guo, who freely expresses his views about society’s poor treatment of the lower class.

The film’s visuals, from the gorgeous period costumes to the elaborate recreation of the city’s gritty environs, are consistently striking. And as the two detectives, Ching-wan and Tse, deliver the sort of slyly entertaining performances that make their characters memorable enough to warrant a sequel.

Opens: Friday, Aug. 31 (China Lion)
Production: Unlimited Production Limited
Cast: Nicholas Tse, Lau Ching-wan, Yang Mi, Boran Jing, Liu Kai-chi, Wu Gang, Yumiko Cheng, Wang Ziyi
Director: Lo Chi-leung
Screenwriters: Lo Chi-leung, Yeung Sin-ling
Producers: Albert Lee, Zhang Zhao
Director of photography: Chan Chi-ying
Editors: Kong Chi-leung, Ron Chan
Production designer: Silver Cheung
Costume designer: Stanley Cheung
Music: Teddy Robin, Tomy Wai
No rating, 103 min.


Posted: Thu., Aug. 30, 2012, 7:34pm PT
The Bullet Vanishes (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117948139?printerfriendly=true)
Taking a page from the careful plotting of Nipponese detective stories, then transplanting the template to a Chinese period setting rife with social resonance, "The Bullet Vanishes" boasts a level of narrative control and artistic finesse rare among such endeavors.

By Maggie Lee

Taking a page from the careful plotting of Nipponese detective stories, then transplanting the template to a Chinese period setting rife with social resonance, "The Bullet Vanishes" boasts a level of narrative control and artistic finesse rare among such endeavors. Unraveling paranormal murders in a bullet factory, Hong Kong helmer Lo Chi-leung sheds the shock tactics of his best-known horror-thrillers, "Inner Senses" and "Koma," to pursue an expositional approach, and pulls it off by casting quietly engrossing leads Sean Lau and Nicholas Tse. Robust opening in China followed by a U.S. bow proves demand for cerebral Asian genre fare exists.

The story is set in Tiancheng prefecture during China's warlord era (around the 1920s). Prison superintendent Song Donglu (Lau), known for his obsessive probing of his inmates' motives, is summoned by police chief Jin (Wu Gang) to investigate an inexplicable murder in the local bullet factory. The foreman, Chen Qi (Liu Yang), has been hit by a bullet that went through his skull and made a dent in the wall, but it's nowhere to be found. Soon afterward, mysterious graffiti on the factory grounds warns of the curse of the "phantom bullet."

Rumors spread about the vengeful ghost of factory girl Yan (Xuxu), who was accused of stealing and coerced into a game of Russian roulette with the boss, Ding (Liu Kai-chi). As predicted, more deaths by gunshot occur, but the bullets are always strangely missing.

Teaming up with sharpshooting detective Guo Zhui (Tse) and Little Lark (Mini Yang), a fortuneteller moonlighting as informant, Song uncovers layers of corruption that rattles the hypothesis he's dedicated to prove: "There are no born villains, just good people turned bad."

In a case-within-a-case, Song entertains a discourse on "the perfect crime" with Fu Yuan (Jiang Yiyan, icily captivating) an inmate convicted of murdering her husband (Chin Ka-lok). Craftily weaving clues into this subplot (with flashbacks shot in stylized black-and-white, like a silent film), Lo makes Fu's clinical premeditation reinforce the moral ambiguity running through the film.

Transcribing such classic concepts as the locked-room murder, as well as the deductive processes and speculative re-enactments favored by Japanese mysteries, Lo and Yeung Sin-ling's screenplay will have no problem holding attention. However, except for a bold stunt utilizing ropes and a pulse-quickening gunfight in the last 15 minutes or so, the pacing is too even-keeled to deliver any edge-of-your-seat tension. This may be why both the final unlocking of mysteries and even the twist ending feel underwhelming despite their cleverness.

The blueprints for the doggedly persistent Song could be famous fictional detectives like Keigo Higashino's Galileo or Seishi Yokomizo's Kousuke Kindaichi, while there's a Holmes-Watson dynamic to his partnership with Guo. The strength of Lau's and Tse's perfs lies in their conscious effort to underplay the eccentricity of their roles, instead conveying their flawed humanity. The distractingly voluptuous Yang gives maximum oomph to a token femme role, making her fling with Guo a steamy diversion from the drier investigation scenes. Similarly, the delightful flirtation between forensic doctor Li Jia (Yumiko Cheng, svelte) and detective Xiaowu (Boran Jing, likable) could have taken on more dramatic weight.

Tech package is a treat. The lighting creates an ambience that's almost Victorian in its haunting play of shadows, and Chan Chi-ying's lensing takes full command of widescreen and elegant tracking shots to underscore the oppressive atmosphere of prisons, factories and police stations. This is reinforced by somber color tones, accentuating the bleak textures of rust, brick and faded wall paint.

[GeneChing]

Anyone catch it?

Lo Chi-leung (http://www.timeout.com.hk/film/features/53090/lo-chi-leung.html)
Posted: 12 Sep 2012

Perhaps better known for his scary flicks and modern thrillers, director Lo Chi-leung is now playing detective for the excellent The Bullet Vanishes. By Edmund Lee.

If Hong Kong writer-director Lo Chi-leung can maintain the high standard set by his meticulously plotted whodunnit The Bullet Vanishes, there’ll be no complaints when his vision of turning the Lau Ching-wan-led murder mystery into a long-standing detective movie series is eventually realised. Distantly channelling Lo’s grievance over injustice towards the working class in contemporary China, the film begins with the death of a young factory girl who was unfairly forced by her wicked boss to play Russian roulette with real bullets. When further gun deaths take place in the same factory with bullets that seem to spontaneously vanish from the scene, righteous forensic expert Song Donglu (Lau) and master police gunman Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse) are called on to solve the mysteries. Lo – whose previous efforts include Double Tap (2000), Inner Senses (2002) and Kidnap (2007) – chats with Time Out ahead of his new film’s Hong Kong release.

How did The Bullet Vanishes project begin?
It’s my intention to create a detective series for the Chinese audience. That’s the starting point of the movie.

So it’s going to be a series?
That’s my hope. Well, I can’t say it’s definitely going to be a series per se, but the protagonist [played by Lau Ching-wan] can be further developed in the future because I feel that, in this day and age, we need a detective character like that. There hasn’t been such a detective [figure] in China.

You’re also the co-writer of the movie. How long have you been planning it?
In China, people are claiming this has been a five-year project and so on – but, to me, that’s all a marketing tactic. This is a two-year project. The basis of the film is the many news items [about real-life injustice] which I came across and have left a big influence on me. Rather than a hero, I’m only creating a character which lets you know that the bottom line of justice does exist. When I conceptualised the characters who are allegedly wrong in the movie, my mind was actually on the little girl who got run over in China [in October, last year] and who was ignored by all the passers-by in the following hours. The ‘crimes’ in my movie are as simple as that: these people [involved] are wrong as long as they didn’t help to save the life – as long as they didn’t stop the murders from happening.

When the film opened in China last month, its theatrical poster bore a striking resemblance to that of [Guy Ritchie’s] Sherlock Holmes. Was that your intention?
No. It’s all a mistake. That poster – the one that resembles Sherlock Holmes – was not by me. I objected to it. To start with, my film is not Sherlock Holmes; or, should I say, it resembles Sherlock Holmes the novels but not Sherlock Holmes the movie. As I often say, the two recent Sherlock Holmes movies are not detective stories – they are action flicks with hardly any investigations in them. The characters have
the answer as soon as they step out of the room; there’s nothing for them to find out. What I wanted to make is a detective movie in which you really need to do some investigations.

The detective movies today are often packaged as buddy movies. Your film may be considered a marginal case. What do you think about this?
I don’t think it’s obligatory for a detective to have a partner. The most important point of my movie is that I think we need a detective who really cares about justice. This is the whole starting point of my movie. I’ve seen too many cases of injustice and I think we need a person, even a fictional one, to tell you the importance of justice. The bottom line must always be there.

Can you tell us about your interest in detective stories?
I won’t say I’m the biggest fan of detective stories but, if you ask me, I’d say Keigo Higashino [the author of the Detective Galileo series] is my favourite. What I especially like about his novels is the way he reduces cases to their essence. He doesn’t magnify the whole thing – which is the exact opposite of the American way. The [mysteries] in Higashino’s stories may be as straightforward as a murder by stabbing on the street – so how did the criminal do it? [Laughs] I think the [vanishing] bullet scenario [in my film] is operating with the same principle. I reduce my story to its basics: so what’s the big deal about the death of a young girl [in the film]? What matters most is not the death [of the girl] but the thinking of the people around her. As is the norm for Higashino, the case is small but the humanity underneath is all-important.

The Bullet Vanishes 消失的子彈 opens on Thu Sep 13.