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The Devotion of Suspect X (2017)

The Devotion of Suspect X (2017)

GENRESThriller
LANGMandarin
ACTOR
Ruby Lin Kai Wang Luyi Zhang
DIRECTOR
Alec Su

SYNOPSICS

The Devotion of Suspect X (2017) is a Mandarin movie. Alec Su has directed this movie. Ruby Lin, Kai Wang, Luyi Zhang are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2017. The Devotion of Suspect X (2017) is considered one of the best Thriller movie in India and around the world.

A physicist who consults for the police suspects that an old friend of his might be involved in a murder he is investigating.

The Devotion of Suspect X (2017) Reviews

  • An fantastic adaption and upright outlooks

    grace_stone2017-04-05

    while many people -- especially young females -- consider romance the greatest feeling in the world and devotion the greatest symbol of love, is sacrifice the thing to show that your love is the purest and irreplaceable? a murder committed by a genius and solved by another genius. The movie has shown us not only a story of "how to get away with murder" and "you can never get away with murder", but also demonstrated that the sacrifice of oneself may be great, the sacrifice of others is definitely unacceptable.

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  • Su's second attempt is an improvement, but leaves more to be desired.

    lightronger2017-04-11

    The brilliant story of The Devotion of Suspect X is recaptured for the Chinese audience in director Alec Su's second film. Aided by a much superior story, a better cast, and more fitting cinematography, Alec Su unfortunately is handicapped by his poor control of the film. The suspense/detective tale with a twist features Zhang Luyi as Shi Hong, a genius and a loner who tries to help his neighbor Chen Jing (Ruby Lin) to cover up her murder of her ex-husband. Unfortunately for the pair, their crime caught the eye of Tang Chuan (Wang Kai), a physicist and Shi Hong's best friend in high school. Tang Chuan is called upon to help detective Luo Miao (Ye Zuxin) to solve the murder, but along the way gets caught in the crime itself. The story is compelling by itself, and Alec Su managed to make it remain that, but nothing more. You can tell he really tries to delve deeper, but fell mostly flat. In one scene, he shot an American Beauty-styled segment of a lost leaf in an attempt to make some deep metaphor that simply added nothing to the story. Zhang Luyi was convincing as a loner, but not so much as the other roles his character plays – an ordinary middle school teacher, a math genius, and occasionally a total creep. Wang Kai looked great in all the three-piece suits and shone through in a few scenes, but I think the choice to make Tang Chuan a part of the police academy was unfortunate, as it was perhaps the angle with the most potential – what happens when emotions and justice comes in conflict with the pursuit of the truth? Overall, the film is a decent second project from Alec Su, but he still has a long way to go. -cfensi

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  • 90/100

    anniezhouc2017-04-04

    The devotion of Suspect X is one of my favorite books, and Keigo Higashino is my favorite writer. Alec Su did a fair job to localize this Japanese style story. Also, it is his second movie as a director, compared to the first, I see great progress. Yukawa (Tangchuan)is my favorite character in "Galileo Series", I have to say I'm very satisfied with Wangkai's acting. Yukawa is elegant and proud, well, he is a genius and he knows he is a genius. He is extremely intelligent but he's not indifferent. I love Yukawa, and Tangchuan is pretty similar to my Yukawa, which made me really excited. This is a good movie and it's worth buying a ticket, but I won't say this is an excellent movie. Wnagkai and Zhang Luyi are both TV dramas actors, and they did try their best for movie art. The point is even though the movie isn't perfect, everyone tried their best, and I think it is the most important thing. It is a high-quality movie.

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  • Incredibly awkward and stilted

    paul-allaer2017-04-08

    "The Devotion of Suspect X" (2017 release from China; 112 min.) brings the story of a murder case set in the Jianbei district of Shijiazhuang, in northern China. As the movie opens, we get to know a math genius who teachers at a junior high school. In a parallel story, a body is found of a 40-ish guy. The Jianbei police gets on the case and quickly narrows down the list of suspects, including the murdered guy's ex-wife. By chance, the neighbor of he ex-wife is an acquaintance of the police officer in charge of the case. At this point we are 15 min, into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience. Couple of comments: this is a remake of the Japanese movie based on the Japanese book of the same name, this time transposed into a Chinese setting. This is the second movie directed by well-known actor Alec Su. Purposefully I wasn't too aware of the movie's plot details, and I walked in the theater expecting an action movie of some sort. Major miscalculation on my part. It turns out this is a low production movie with incredibly awkward and stilted performances, something one might see in TV movies and even soaps. In fact, on 3 or 4 instances, the music swells as the "drama" rises, only to then fade out to a black screen, as if we were going to a TV commercial. Furthermore, the movie switches from a whodunnit movie to a "will the cops catch the murderer" movie midway in the film, as what happened to the murdered guy is revealed halfway through. In all, I felt incredibly disappointed by this film on so many levels. "The Devotion of Suspect X" opened two weekends ago on a single screen for all of Greater Cincinnati. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended quite nicely. I should add that I was the only non-Chinese/American-Chinese in the audience. Not that it matters, as the entire audience was laughing and hollering in disbelief during the most cringe-inducing moments of the movie. I love foreign films of all sorts, but in good consciousness, there is no way I can recommend this film to anyone. Viewer beware!

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  • A faithful, but ultimately unremarkable, adaptation that will do fine for those unfamiliar with the tale, but offer little for those who already know its twists and turns

    moviexclusive2017-04-07

    If you've seen the 2008 Japanese adaptation 'Suspect X', then this made-for-China version of the same Keigo Higashino thriller probably holds little surprises. As its synopsis already reads, 'The Devotion of Suspect X' tells of a reunion between two brilliant minds who were once classmates – criminologist Prof Tang Chuan (Wang Kai) and secondary school Mathematics teacher Shi Hong (Zhang Luyi) – when a gruesome murder is committed that ensnares Shi Hong's next-door neighbor Chen Jing (Ruby Lin) and her teenage daughter Xiaoxin. Though the lead detective Luo Mao is suspicious of Chen Jing and her somewhat too-perfect alibi, Prof Tang believes that his former intellectual equal Shi Hong is somehow implicated in the case – and true enough, the latter had not only assisted Chen Jing in covering up the accidental death of her ex-husband, but will also be instrumental in coming up with a Plan B as Detective Luo's investigative noose slowly tightens around Chen Jing. Whereas Hiroshi Nishitani's film turned that premise into a battle- of-wits, sophomore director Alec Su dials down the tension between the protagonists in favour of a more affecting observation of Shi Hong and the circumstances surrounding his misplaced altruism. Why would someone whom Prof Tang first proclaims to be interested only in Mathematics and not in money or relationships go out of his way in order to help someone who is at best an acquaintance? What drives the middle-aged Shi Hong now, whose shyness has now turned into detachment, disappointment and worse disillusionment? And therefore, how far would Shi Hong go to help Chen Jing, even to the extent of shouldering the murder rap? Bit by bit, Su peels back the layers to reveal an intimate portrait of Shi Hong, a Mathematics prodigy now wasting his time teaching inattentive adolescents in school and left despondent that his life has now become utterly meaningless. That emphasis on Shi Hong inevitably comes at the expense of Prof Tang, whose purpose in the movie is confined to drawing out Shi Hong's motivations, figuring out Shi Hong's role in the case, and by extension push the plot-driven narrative forward. Aside from his astute criminal mind and familiarity with Shi Hong, there is little else that defines Prof Tang. Unlike Shi Hong therefore, we know not what drives him to engage in the investigation, whether is it because he relishes the challenge itself or whether it is borne of his firm belief in the pursuit of the truth. That in turn constrains how far we believe and empathize with his crisis of conscience that he faces at the end after finally uncovering the facts of the case – what good is the truth if its revelation ultimately causes the parties involved, sans the police, even more pain? That is the conundrum that its viewers were meant to ponder, but which is regrettably glossed over here. It isn't just Prof Tang's part that is diminished, but also the dynamic between Prof Tang and Shi Hong. A series of flashbacks early on tells of the stimulation of intellectual sparring when they were classmates, with each taking turns to come up with IQ questions that the other must solve. That same simulation is apparently what makes Prof Tang excited about reconnecting with Shi Hong after so many years, who brings the latter a paper disproofing the Riemann hypothesis for him to validate on the occasion of their first reunion. And yet, subsequent scenes between the two male leads fail to reinforce this, their banter heavy on ambiguity but little else. Unlike the novel and the previous Japanese big-screen iteration of it therefore, their relationship feels more of two old friends reconnecting after a long while apart than of two equally clever minds facing off with each other, which in turn makes it seem slightly perplexing why Prof Tang would continue assisting the investigation especially knowing fair well that it would invariably push Shi Hong into a corner. Compared to Masuharu Fukuyama and Shinichi Tsutsumi, Wang Kai and Zhang Luyi are simply not as compelling. The former cuts a suave, sharp figure as Prof Tang, but is constrained by the limits of his character in relation to the story. The latter, on the other hand, captures the reclusive, introverted nature of Shi Hong, but not his inner brilliance or his profound sense of attachment towards Chen Jing and Xiaoxin, which arguably is crucial to understanding why he would go to such lengths to protect both mother and daughter against their abusive and degenerate father. Indeed, Zhang Luyi's performance consists quite one-dimensionally of hunching his soldiers, looking forlorn and smiling on occasion when his character gets the opportunity to share a tender moment with either Chen Jing or Xiaoxin. The two female actresses playing Chen Jing and Xiaoxin inject sufficient vulnerability and warmth into their respective roles, but the film rests on its two male leads and needed to have a stronger complement than Zhang Luyi. To be fair, 'The Devotion of Suspect X' is perfectly watchable, and a major step-up from Su's flat-footed first film 'My Left Foot'. Unfortunately, after a superior Japanese adaptation and another well- reviewed Korean one, Su's faithful but unremarkable version somehow comes off underwhelming. For those unfamiliar with the story, this will probably do fine; but for those (and we suspect there will be many) who are already familiar with the twists and turns, there needs to be a more compelling reason to be invested in this version, not just for the fact that it is set in China's Jiangnan and stars a bunch of Chinese actors. Without strong character development (and we mean both Prof Tang and Shi Hong, not just one or the other) as well as equally robust acting, there is not enough to distinguish this from its predecessors – and that is, even with recruiting author Higashino as one of its six screenwriters no less.

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