Mad Detective

A stylishly funky Hong Kong thriller from cult director Johnnie To and co-writer/codirector Wai Ka Fai.

Mad Detective doesn't always make sense, and you cannot always tell what is real and what is imaginary, but viewers will be having too much zonked-out fun to care.

If the insanely inventive and entertaining Mad Detective weren't so weird -- and in Cantonese -- hordes of action geeks would be lining the block to see it.

Fleeting confusion and bizarre literalization aside, Mad Detective is an effective mystery story, with an oddball hero -- like TV's Monk, but far crazier -- and some moments of visceral violence that raise the stakes.

Every moment in Mad Detective seems engineered for maximum oddity; it almost becomes overwhelming...Yet the movie feels adventuresome, too, a new bridge to Asiaa(TM)s soulful ghost canon. Ita(TM)s a metaphysical mystery masquerading as a doodle.