Detective vs. Sleuths (2022)

"The devil loves to play the angel"

Detective vs Sleuths aka Demon Hunter was a frenetic carnival ride strewn with dead bodies, mental illness, and revenge. It proved the old adage to be true, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”

Lee Jun is a disgraced ex-detective who sees and hears things that other people do not. His motto is, “Whoever battles monsters should ensure that he does not become one.”* A dead man reveals a sinister plot to Jun. With each death comes a clue pointing to the next one-all cases of Jun’s that lacked the evidence to prove guilt. A very pregnant inspector, Chan Yee, becomes caught up in Jun’s madness all while her department is convinced he is actually mad and may be the criminal perpetrator.

Jun was considered a Chosen Sleuth before he broke down. But in this film, the question of who was the sleuth and who was the psychopath, became deeply entwined. A team of murderous avengers calling themselves The Chosen Sleuths hunted down the suspects in Jun’s notes, meting out their own form of justice. The Hong Kong police were often shown as ineffectual and quick to jump to conclusions leading to tragic results. Jun’s manic episodes and connections to the cases eroded any confidence in his abilities and innocence.

DvS moved fast and erratically with a large cast. When cops were killed and everyone cried, I had no idea who they were talking about. The bad guys had at least three huge vans of deadly avengers. The camera bounced around as much as the cast did. A few breathers for the audience to process the information being rapidly dumped minute-to-minute would have been nice. Most annoyingly, the Cantonese dubbing was terrible for several characters.

Lau Ching Wan was excellent as the brilliant, if very unstable, Lee Jun. Once I learned how to keep my balance on this topsy-turvy rollercoaster, it became more bearable and thrilling. The grand finale was a grossly over the top explosion that threw everything it could at the screen to be memorable. In some ways it succeeded, while still not managing to feel convincing. A wild, hallucinogenic, and violent film with numerous red herrings, Detective vs Sleuths dizzily stumbled about as it sought to discover who was the sleuth and who was the psychopath. Sometimes, both things can be true.

16 June 2026

*Quote Note: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”.

Trigger Warnings: Countless deaths by knives, guns, and fire. The bodies really stacked up in this one. One torture scene.







Slightly spoilery maternity note: Perhaps Chan Yee’s baby was the real demon. No umbilical chord? Yeah, that’s creepy.

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