Mad Detective

Original title: San taam

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

8.2K

YOUR RATING

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Action Crime Mystery Thriller

A rookie cop teams up with a former detective with a supernatural gift to hunt down a serial killer.A rookie cop teams up with a former detective with a supernatural gift to hunt down a serial killer.A rookie cop teams up with a former detective with a supernatural gift to hunt down a serial killer.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

8.2K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 7 wins & 11 nominations

Bun
(as Lau Ching Wan)

Andy On

Inspector Ho Ka-on

Ka-Tung Lam

Ko Chi-wai
(as Lam Ka Tung)

Kelly Lin

May Cheung

Kwok-Lun Lee

Wong Kwok-chu
(as Lee Kwok Lun)

Choi-ning Lee

Gigi
(as Karen Lee)

Flora Chan

May Cheung - in Bun's eyes

Eddie Cheung

Violent Man - Ko's Inner Personality
(as Cheung Siu Fai)

Suet Lam

Fatso - Ko's Inner Personality
(as Lam Suet)

Jay Lau

Calculating Woman - Ko's Inner Personality
(as Lau Kam Ling)

Eddy Ko

The Chief

Jo Kuk

Cunning Woman - Ho's Inner Personality
(as Jo Koo)

Ling-To Yuen

Policeman
(as Yuen Ling To)

Jonathan Yat-Sing Lee

Weak Boy - Ho's Inner Personality
(as Jonathan Lee)

Ronald Yan

Ko's Boss

Wah-Wo Wong

Restaurant Manager

Apple Chow

7-11 Worker
(as Apple Chau)

Jackson Ha

Ko's Colleague

Directors
- Johnnie To
- Ka-Fai Wai
Writers
- Ka-Fai Wai
- Kin-Yee Au
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Storyline

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Did you know

Edit

Goofs
At the beginning of the movie, when the main character is cutting his ear off, we can clearly see the half of it. (at around 63 mins) when the ear unfolds from the bandage we see a whole piece of it.

Quotes
Inspector Bun: [Bun talks to himself] If you shoot, you will be no different from everyone else.
Inspector Bun: [on second thought] I am human too. Why should I be any different?
[Bun pulls the trigger]

Crazy credits
In the part of the end credits sequence before the comprehensive lists of cast and crew begin to scroll, the lines of text of the credits are tilted counter clockwise, forming roughly thirty-degree slope/incline.

Alternate versions
Johnnie To and Ka-Fai Wai approved a new cut of the movie for the international market, with two scenes from the Hong Kong cut removed:
A scene after Bun buries himself under the ground visualizing a scenario where Ko Chi-Wai's spirits are planting fake evidence on the Indian as a murder suspect. The scene removed shows Bun "dreaming" and visualizing another scenario of Ho Ka-On's child spirit being chased and overpowered by Chi-Wai's seven spirits. One of Chi-Wai's spirits urges another of his spirits to shoot the child spirit dead, to complicate the police investigation, to which that spirit responds shooting the child spirit. This moment awakes Bun from his "sleep" under the ground.
The scene where Ho Ka-On is chasing a mask-wearing suspect through the streets before the two of them bump onto a moving truck separating each other. What follows are two different outcomes for respective cuts. In the Hong Kong cut, Ka-On is about to get up and sees the suspect who looks at Ka-On. The suspect starts to run towards Ka-On, who tries to reach for his gun but realizes that it's missing. The suspect points his gun at Ka-On and proceeds to search him and asks him where Ka-On has his gun. Ka-On responds saying that he lost it, and then the suspect kicks him down and starts hitting him with his gun while repeatedly asking for Ka-On's gun while Ka-On, being on his knees injured, repeats saying that he lost his gun. The suspect is shown pointing his gun at Ka-On again while thinking it's not worth killing him, and starts walking away. An overhead shot of Ka-On lying on the ground is shown afterward.

Connections
References Stray Dog (1949)

User reviews32

Review

Featured review

9/10

Not for everyone

This movie is quirky, weird and everything else that can not be considered mainstream. But it's also fun, light, heavy, violent, romantic and many other things ... amongst others too: Original! Or maybe unique and refreshing are more accurate words.

If you are not familiar with the work of Johnnie To, maybe this isn't the first of his movies to watch. There is "Running out of Time", there is "Fulltime Killer", PTU and many others! If you like them, then you can try this movie too. But again, it's off-beat, it has a main character who is very ... strange to say the least and it has a very crazy idea (or many crazy ideas) behind it all ... I won't go into details, but this movie and how it was made (shot, edited etc.) is simply great! If you allow yourself to enjoy it's sheer craziness