Taiwanese cinema has been producing a series of crime movies lately, and quite diverse for matter, as titles like “Godspeed” and the “Gatao” franchise highlight. Chan Chun-hao attempts his own hand in the category, adapting Feng Shi’s novel, through an approach, though, that lingers somewhere between the pulp and the soap opera.
“You Have to Kill Me” is screening at Asian Pop-up Cinema
Police officer Chou is about to propose to his girlfriend, Chen, when he receives a homicide case report and follows it to the mountains. He even manages to catch the perpetrator, Li, but to his shock, he finds out that the victim was actually Chen. Despite being devastated and overly violent, he manages to exact an interrogation from Li, who insists, however, that the girl actually asked him to kill. Furthermore, it turns out that Li is the son of a very powerful man, Chairman Cheng-Wen Li, who is not willing to let anything happen to his son, while the true identity of the victim is soon placed under doubt. A devastated Chou continues to investigate against all odds, with his research stumbling upon another murder from years ago, a heart transplant, and a series of other secrets of everyone involved, who are revealed mostly through flashbacks. All the while, the only help he receives is from his colleague, Wang.
The pulp/soapy element mentioned in the prologue derives mostly from the script, which is far-fetched on a number of levels, starting from the fact that almost all protagonists of the movie are eventually revealed to have something to do with the case, and that the plot twists, particularly the one revealed in the end, border on being cheesy. The same applies to the heart-transplant concept that has been done to death on American TV, and the one of the rich father trying to save his son from the clutches of the law. Add to that some melodrama about children on the brink of death, lost siblings, and an exploration of the concept of guilt that also serves to move the story forward, and you have the gist of the story, which is filled with twists that retain interest, but also with cliches.
Apart from the narrative, however, almost every aspect of the movie is top notch, and particularly a series of individual scenes. The woman chasing another woman concept especially is rather well shot and presented, with the inevitable climax being the most impactful scene in the movie. The same applies to the psychological status of Li, which deteriorates as time passes, in an excellent performance by Snoopy Yu. Janel Tsai is also quite convincing, in a multileveled role that essentially carries the movie from beginning to end. Cheng Jen-Shuo is on a lower level than his other roles, since his acting is rather excessive here, but for the most part, he is serviceable.
The aforementioned pros benefit the most by the excellent cinematography, which gives a noir sense to the whole movie that fits its aesthetics quite nicely, and the editing, with the flashbacks being ideally placed in the narrative and the rather fast, always moving-forward pace fitting the overall aesthetics to perfection.
As such, “You Have to Kill Me” emerges as one of those films whose audience will enjoy if they do not overthink, since entertainment is found here aplenty.
