It all starts on one evening when a young girl comes to meet her boyfriend in his house ------ room 405. After the entry, a squeal of horror roams in the air of the whole department. Li Liang, her boyfriend, has been murderedÂ…. Usually in the police suspense movies the conflict must to be made, which is always the tussle between the police and the criminal. The police use the evidence to reveal the finial truth while the criminal makes all the conspiracy he can to deter it. Many films comprise one conflict, while what makes this one unique and marvelous is that it has two. We now talk about the first apparent conflict: the police force led by Old Chen figure out who indeed killed Li Liang by using three evidences: the fingerprint remained on the cup, the words ' I will not forgive you, A San( a nickname), and the feather found on the body. Then after several seemingly rather dull chases and runs, two major suspects come out of the mist. However, the circumstance starts to take a U-turn at the moment the Old Chen is knocked down from the bike and nearly killed in the man made traffic accident, which leads the audiences to the second and perilous conflict: the gigantic conspiracy behind the murder. Warning! Review now may be plot-leaking. After a series of adventures, Old Chen finds out that the murder of Li Liang is just the beginning of the darkness which was made so as to frame up a movie director who had been asked to make propaganda about the paramilitary army and found the likely military coup. Finally the Old Chen realized that the whole city departments, even the police department, are against him. All the deadly encounters are made by his higher-ups. It is quite a shock to me that the movie was finished in the 1980 in China. Those well and heartily made Chinese movies are rare, not to mention this political related one. Sometimes I wonder how the movie survived because the coup I mentioned above indeed happened and the movie was made according to the history. My first shock is that this film is learning from Hollywood and Japan. At the beginning, it appeals to me with a strong Hitchcock style: The footstep on the corridor in the night, and squeal behind the closed door. Later on, no need to say the chase in the Yellow Mountain contains the flavor of north by northwest, and the music behind the chase and run are similar to the Japanese chase. Finally I would say the uniqueness of this film is the plot which is beyond the imagination of any other nation, because to let an individual to fight against the whole governmental departments is simply beyond any rational thinking. However, such things did happen in China accurately in 1976 and provides a rare but appealing film material. By the way, the movie was made in 1980 and if later on, all the Chinese movies had been made in this way, the future should have been brighter.
2 Reviews
Pioneer in China for thrillers, or was it not?
zzmale26 November 2003
Literal translation of the title: 405 Murder.
Pioneer in China was it all right, but was it a thriller? Probably not, instead, it turned out closer to horror rather than thriller. We cannot blame it too much for this is one of the first attempt in China to divert away from the political propaganda, and for that, it deserve a perfect score for trying.
Pioneer in China was it all right, but was it a thriller? Probably not, instead, it turned out closer to horror rather than thriller. We cannot blame it too much for this is one of the first attempt in China to divert away from the political propaganda, and for that, it deserve a perfect score for trying.
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