The Detective 1+2 Blu-ray Boxset (Hong Kong Version) Blu-ray Region A

The Detective

Aaron Kwok continues his streak of winning performances with Oxide Pang's The Detective. Set in Thailand, Kwok's latest outing is an immensely entertaining suspense thriller bearing the unmistakable Pang Bros. signature. Bolstered by atmospheric set design and commanding music, the film spins plentiful jumps and scares from an unsettling narrative that keeps the audience at the edge of their seats. Fresh off consecutive Best Actor wins at the Golden Horse Awards for Divergence and After This Our Exile, Kwok is perfectly charismatic and at ease as a laid-back Thai-Chinese detective pulled into a mysterious murder case. Kwok is supported by talented character actors Liu Kai Chi (Infernal Affairs 2), Kenny Wong (Gong Tau), Wayne Lai, Kiki Sheung, and Jo Koo, as well as long-time-no-see faces like Shing Fui On and former pop starlet Elle Choi.

Holding shop from a small dinky office, near-sighted, debt-ridden private detective Tam (Aaron Kwok) talks big, but does small business. He gets an interesting new job when hard-drinking friend Lung (Shing Fui Oi) shows up one day with the picture of a woman whom he claims is trying to kill him. Unable to locate the woman, Tam starts looking up her acquaintances, but he seems to always be in the wrong place at the right time. At his first stop, he walks into a man hanging from the ceiling, the first of many dead bodies he stumbles upon. Tam becomes increasingly obsessed with finding the truth behind the mysterious deaths, but digging too deep could have dangerous consequences.

The Detective 2

Four years after unwittingly cracking his first case, Aaron Kwok's inept private eye is back in action with an improved grade in the highly anticipated The Detective 2! Director Oxide Pang's stylish 2007 mystery was considered one of the best solo efforts from the Pang Brothers, and this time he returns to Bangkok with stars Aaron Kwok and Liu Kai Chi for an even more suspenseful adventure. Although the Asian horror-meister has surprisingly dispensed with the supernatural element of the first film, he isn't about to let up on the chill factor. The psychological crime thriller sequel has caught a group of new suspects for the supporting cast, including Patrick Tam, Eddie Cheung, Izz Xu (Child's Eye), and Mainland actress Gong Beibi.

Bumbling private detective Chan Tam (Aaron Kwok) is enlisted by police pal Fung Chak (Liu Kai Chi) to help in the investigation of a serial murder case. The victims - a middle-aged man killed at home, a dead woman found in the trash dump, and a teenage girl slain in the park - were all killed in grisly manners, but they didn't seem related to each other. Without any clue to follow up on, Tam is decidedly at his wits' end. But when Chak is seriously wounded by a mysterious assailant, Tam deduces that the only way to uncover the truth is to get into the mind of the deranged killer, and in so doing he is forced to face a long-hidden side of himself...

• thriller
• detective
• thailand
• crime
• sequel
• suspense
• ghost