Song Ci Zhi Cao Ren An (2022)

Cheap Fast Food!

Detective Song Ci is loosely based on the first forensic entomologist and the author of Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified. I suspect reading his 1000 year-old forensic science book would be more entertaining than this short, cheap, confusing movie.

The story bounces around more than a ball at an octopus ping pong tournament. Detective Song is called in when a man is murdered at home. He solves the crime in seconds which freed up his schedule to deal with a mysterious mass murder of the Li family in the Tonggu County. Creepy straw men are hung where the people disappear, their bodies buried elsewhere. By his side is his trusty deputy Han dressed like a typical historical bodyguard. A young woman also drops in from a roof and joins him in the investigation. She has a jade pendant much like the Li family carries and she's looking for her parents. At the same time Grand Censor Ding, and Song's boss, has his hands full with the Emperor who wants to travel to Tonggu Co. to visit his old teacher who is ill. Ding forbids anyone to talk about the straw man murders under penalty of arrest, including Song. Even though not one constable had been aware of much less able to stop any of the murders of the prominent family they are quick as bunnies to arrest people whispering about the case. Song deduces that the killers are using blood thirsty insects to kill their victims. Before long he realizes events and people are not as they seem.

The movie is needlessly confusing at the beginning when much of the action is going back and forth without people being properly introduced. Eventually, names and titles are given to most of the characters which helps to sort the story out. At the end when the nefarious plot is revealed, a dying character has to use his last couple of hundred breaths to tell the convoluted tale. Some of the characters are still an enigma as the credits roll, there simply wasn't the time to develop them.

The production values were quite low. I did enjoy seeing old kung fu movie actor Norman Chu in his role. Norman's General Censor costume was much nicer than the clueless Emperor's. The fighting was of the most rudimentary style and they couldn't even get the buckets of spurting blood to look better than a 1970's kung fu flick. Norman must have felt right at home. Most of the acting was perfunctory with some of the worst dubbing I've ever heard. Along with the atrocious dubbing were the sound effects that were so amplified as to be literally laughable. When several women were walking on a dirt path further from the action, they sounded like a herd of horses walking by. Music overrode the dialogue at times. They couldn't even muster the money for a proper entourage and palanquin for the Emperor.

If you have an hour you need to kill and want to see a low budget movie with a big body count and a low rent Detective Dee or Sherlock Holmes, you might want to give this one a try. Otherwise, better to watch Detective Dee or even The Great Mouse Detective than this one. Song Ci deserved much better.

2/24/23

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