Chinese detective thriller “Disappeared in the Stars” is released

The Chinese box office champion, the thriller “Disappeared in the Stars” by Cui Rui and Liu Xiang, is being released in Russia. The transfer of Hitchcockian techniques and the techno-colored style of Hollywood of the 1950s to Asian soil turned out to be bright and unabashedly melodramatic – in America, Europe, and even in Russia now almost no one dares to shoot like this, he believes Julia Shagelman.

Released in China in July this year, “Gone in the Stars,” co-produced and co-written by one of the nation’s most successful film industry professionals, Chen Sicheng, grossed the equivalent of $430 million in just seventeen days, placing it in seventh place. place in the list of the most profitable films of the year. At the moment, of course, the Chinese phenomenon has removed Barbie and Oppenheimer from this list, but in its homeland, Gone Girl remains the fourteenth most profitable film release in history.

For such success, the film has everything necessary: ​​an intricate detective plot, beautiful actors, a lot of sentimental music, a polished glossy picture with an emphasis on flaming red and dramatic blue, chases, shootouts, passions to break and an unexpected plot twist. More precisely, unexpected for those who do not remember or have never watched the Soviet film “The Trap for a Lonely Man” (1990) based on the play by Robert Thomas, because the Chinese film is a free remake of it. True, unlike the comedy film by Alexey Korenev, with Cui Rui and Liu Xiang everything is serious. Tom’s play was once intended to be filmed by Hitchcock, but Gone Girl… with its motif of doubles, femme fatales and a confused protagonist who suddenly discovered that everything around is not what it seems, acts as an homage to the great master of suspense.

Chinese tourist He Fei (Zhu Yilong) desperately asks for help at the police station at a fictional island resort in Southeast Asia. His wife Li Muzi, with whom he came here to celebrate their wedding anniversary, has disappeared, and there is only a week left before his visa expires. Only his former compatriot, policeman Zhen Chen (Du Jiang), agrees to help him. But the next morning, a beautiful woman is discovered in Fei’s bed, claiming that she is the missing and now returned Muzi (Janice Man). A passport, photographs, evidence from hotel staff – all confirm the identity of the stranger, and, of course, no one, including Chen, believes the alarmed husband that this is not his wife at all, especially since Faye suffers from a rare disease that causes hallucinations and memory loss.

Then he hires local lawyer Chen Mai (Ni Ni), famous for her ability to get her clients out of the most hopeless situations. She starts an investigation, at every step of which new, not always pleasant, surprises await her, Fei and the audience. It seems that the entire population of the island is participating in a conspiracy against the unfortunate tourist, but, as it turns out, he, too, cannot be called an exemplary husband. And the fact that Muzi turns out to be the heiress of a huge fortune further increases the stakes in this game with a double or even triple bottom.

The closer to the end, the less believable everything that happens becomes, but the wild twists even give the picture its charm. Having agreed to ride this roller coaster, viewers will have to forget about formal logic for a while, but this ride will definitely not be boring.