Lost in the stars

Lost in the Stars is a Chinese Hitchcockian-style mystery crime thriller that grips the audience and keeps them guessing with endless twists and turns. It's pulpy, melodramatic entertainment that burns brightest in the moment, assaulting the audience with questions but never providing enough time or the breathing room to solve them.

While celebrating their first anniversary at a Thai island resort, He Fei discovers his wife Muzi has mysteriously gone missing. Unable to file a missing persons case with the police and his visa about to expire, He Fei wakes up to find an unknown woman claiming to be his wife and that all the photographs on his phone have been replaced.

Desperate for help, He Fei hires Chen, a renowned hotshot lawyer, to disprove the mystery woman's identity and find the real Muzi.

Directors Rui Cui and Xiang Liu hook the audience from the beginning and keep the plot moving like a freight train. Yilong Zhu, Ni Ni, and Janice Man tune their performances to serve the mystery like a cog in the machine, finding the sweet spot between who their character appears to be and revealed to be. Little inconsistencies spotted are actually all paid off later in a fun way.

The final reveal... is so ridiculous that it's technically a cheat. I notably laughed out loud as the film blatantly switches genres to engineer an unguessable reveal.

It's the equivalent of revealing Darth Vader is a woman so the audience has no chance of guessing he's Luke Skywalker's father, if that makes sense.

By that point, the fun had already been had. I already cared and can't take it back. The journey was in guessing what was happening at the moment, less in the reveal itself.

The best mysteries place the answer in plain sight and deceptively steer the audience from seeing the obvious the entire time. Lost in the Stars falls short of this; its mystery is ultimately not sophisticated enough to warrant a rewatch. The mood, intrigue, and soap opera melodrama of it all still make it an entertaining one-time watch.

It has been a very long while since last time I 'wowed' a suspense movie, and I am so glad the wait is over. Lost in the Stars takes suspense to the extreme, and even beyond. No matter if you guess it right or not, you will enjoy the process of finding the answer - isn't that suspense all about? With that said, Lost in the Stars has many a twists that lead to a surprise for closure.

The movie started with a missing person case, the wife of the lead character, He Fei (Zhu Yilong), vanished into thin air, during their trip to southeast Asia. He Fei desperately tried to find his wife, and suffered dearly, only to face a stranger (Janice Man) who insisted being his wife. He Fei found himself entangled in a web of plots and conspiracies, or did he really? Of course, there was a second as beautiful woman, Chen Mai (Ni Ni), who was capable of everything, came to rescue, or did she really? So, fasten your seatbelt and you will need it. There will be ups and downs, twists and turns.

Director/producer Chen Sicheng, known for his suspense crime movies, such as Sheep Without a Shepherd, brought forth another classic. For a story following a main character, we have a 50-50 chance of getting it right, for he is most likely either 'innocent' or 'bad'. However, this suspense dug into something deeper than that, taking a serious look at human nature and relationships.

We are often under the impression that suspense movies are mostly 'commercially oriented', acting may not be their 'big thing'. Well, not necessarily. Looking back there were plenty of award-worthy/winning performances in history, just to name a few, Edward Norton in Primal Fear, Kevin Spacey in the Usual Suspect, Nicole Kidman in the Others... - I know, it has been a good while. Again, I am glad the wait is over. For people who know a little bit about Zhu Yilong, you may remember his leading role in Un Certain Regard selected Only the River Flows at Canne Film Festival that just wrapped. It is safe to say he only chooses 'acting-worthy' or 'acting-challenging' characters. He Fei is no exception, if not an 'extreme'. There are many faces of the character, where he was a loving husband, an abused tourist, a doubtful client, a person with a neural disorder, and more, or was he really any of the above? Zhu Yilong gave a convincing performance, not only fully developed, but also multiple layered, for each face this guy had. There was a very difficult facial twitch that likely will be symbolic (you can try to see how difficult it is), however that's only the surface. Human nature's complexity was portrayed with depth and power, that leaves the audience to ponder and reflect.

No matter you are just in for a good thrill, or you look for inspiration and thought provoking complexities, you will enjoy this ride.

At the start, this is quite an intriguing drama. "He Fei" (Yilong Zhu) and his wife "Li Muzi" seem to be getting along nicely until she disappears. He is in despair until a woman appears asserting that she is the missing woman - and he is certain that she is not his wife. This lady (Janice Man) is adamant, and when he seeks police assistance she is able to prove her identity with videos, photos and friends who corroborate her story. Is he just losing the plot, or might something more sinister be afoot? Fortunately for our increasingly hapless hero, a local lawyer/investigator "Chen Mai" (Ni Ni) decides that she is going to help him out and the more they dig, the more confusion they discover. To be fair, the plot is anything but simple - it has plenty of twists and turns, but I rather lost interest in him as a character and the plot gradually became a bit too convoluted. There just aren't enough clues for us to follow, we learn at the same rate as them and that left me in limbo for too much of this two hour drama. The ending has a quirkiness to it, but the characterisations are too weak and the story too thin to make it worth the wait. It's a sort of grudge/retribution story - but for way too long I didn't know why or whom by. It is watchable, and the acting is OK, but I doubt I will recall much about this next week.

Distinctively Chen Sicheng, Lost in the Stars are in many ways imprinted with the director imprints, full of quick successive scenes filled with popping movements and colors, and quickwittedness but lacking in logic or any sort of explanation and I absolutely hate it. Zhu's, whom I believe is one the best Chinese actor right now delivers a performance that feels like an echo in an empty room. What makes the film better than the Chinatown series is that at least at the center there is a giant intrigue that you want to get to the end of it, but towards the end even that feels predictable and uncreative. The progression of the film feels driven by a series of plot holes. Again, the supporting cast is also a huge question mark, featuring awkward dialogues and motives.

Such a recent hit in mainland, and I guess it's more of a trendy success more than anything else. The general framework seems to be inspired by The Invisible Guest, yet the mystery not as intricate and the story not as convincing. The former issue being some of the events, scenes, and shots overly dramatized by the sound effect or cinematography, while the latter due to the overall mediocre performances. Also, the ending is stacked with a superfluous amount of twists and twines, which simply reflects some of the logical errors prior. It seems that the intention of the movie is quite clear: to tell a convoluted mystery from an intriguing perspective with a justified moral.