Full River Red (2023)

When an ambassador is found stabbed to death, the Prime Minister "Qin Hui" (Jiayin Lei) orders an immediate investigation to be headed by his director "He Li" (Yi Zhang) and his deputy "Wu Yichun" (the quite charismatic Yunpeng Yue). Pretty quickly, this investigation has seen the killing of the Captain of the guard and his replacement by the young "Sun Jun" (Jackson Lee) who has alighted on a potential culprit in "Zhang Da" (Teng Shen). The Prime Minister has given the young man and his prisoner just two hours to get to the bottom of the killing and to retrieve a letter thought to have been contained in an ornate leather purse. For much of the first ninety minutes, this is quite a cleverly interwoven and characterful whodunit. Who to trust, who is behind the plot - what is contained in the letter? Who has read the letter? What might the beautiful courtesans know of the mystery? It's quickly paced and quite entertaining. Sadly, though, the last forty-five minutes rather falls away. The characters all start to trip over themselves and the intrigue stops being that and starts to become a bit of a farce leading to an ending that was really weak and disappointing. It looks great though, the production standards and costumes are professional and colourful - it's just an hour too long - and that's without counting the endless pre-title production credits!