Full River Red

When an ambassador is found stabbed to death, the Prime Minister "Qin Hui" (Jiayin Lei) orders an immediate investigation to be headed by his director "He Li" (Yi Zhang) and his deputy "Wu Yichun" (the quite charismatic Yunpeng Yue). Pretty quickly, this investigation has seen the killing of the Captain of the guard and his replacement by the young "Sun Jun" (Jackson Lee) who has alighted on a potential culprit in "Zhang Da" (Teng Shen). The Prime Minister has given the young man and his prisoner just two hours to get to the bottom of the killing and to retrieve a letter thought to have been contained in an ornate leather purse. For much of the first ninety minutes, this is quite a cleverly interwoven and characterful whodunit. Who to trust...

You know, while the mixed reviews had me a little worried this wouldn't live up to my hype, my faith never wavered. It seems my conviction was justified, because my goodness is this a masterpiece! So good in fact, that I missed the last direct bus back home because I was so engrossed in discussing it afterwards - if my misfortune is not an endorsement, then I don't know what is!

If you've seen Hero and House of Flying Daggers, then you can know what to expect from the plot here: a semi-historical account of a band of usurpers, plotting with wild abandon against tyrannical authority, inside a twisty plot as loyalties shift in constant flux, amounting to a grand political stance as reality reveals itself to be far too complicated for any o...