Sheep Without a Shepherd review – perky Chinese thriller that toes the line too carefully
It turns out that cinephilia is a productive use of time after all. When his computer is searched, Li Weijie, protagonist of this perky Chinese thriller, has watched 838 films in a year – and he uses his superior knowledge of the seventh art to get his family out of a pickle. Chinese but living in northern Thailand, he scrapes by as an internet technician, but his daughter finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation after she accidentally kills the son of a police chief who was trying to blackmail her with smartphone-filmed rape footage.
A remake of the 2013 Malayalam film Drishyam, this big Chinese hit ultimately doffs the cap to Korean cinema: it is Jeong Keun-seob’s 2013 film Montage that inspires Li when he has to provide his family with an alibi.
The cat-and-mouse game that ensues is fairly engaging, rooted in two sturdy performances from the main combatants: Xiao Yang’s Li, with his outwardly dopey demeanour but operating with an intelligent pragmatism, and police chief Laoorn, a crack investigator played by Joan Chen with a turbulent confluence of steeliness and maternal anguish. The fine details of Li’s scheme are rather broadly relayed – something not helped by director Sam Quah’s over-eager rhythms. The film cites Hitchcock as the master of tension, and puts commendable effort in to devise similar set pieces. But often the results are a touch forced, as in one scene sparked by a goat noticing Li before the car he is attempting to dispose of sinks into a river.
But Sheep Without a Shepherd gets the basics right and, as the town rises in anger in support of the family, it is swept along on a tide of indignation about police corruption and brutality. Given how pertinent a subject this is, it’s a shame about the film’s odd ending, with moralising overtones that make nonsense of Li’s reasons for earlier evading justice. It smacks of Production Code-type censorship and China Film Group, whose production this is, toeing the line on law and order.
· Sheep Without a Shepherd is released on 26 April on digital platforms.