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China · 2019
1h 52m
Director Sam Quah
Starring Xiao Yang, Tan Zhuo, Joan Chen, Philip Keung
Genre Crime, Drama
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Weijie discovers that his wife A Yu and daughter Ping Ping have accidentally murdered Su Cha, the chief police's son. Su Cha sexually assaulted Ping Ping, but his ties to power will bar Weijie's family from a fair trial. Weijie must come up with a foolproof plan to help his wife and daughter escape the law.
Sheep Without A Shepherd is good fun as both an action flick and a heartfelt crime-thriller at the same time. In case you were wondering, the ending is fantastic, which is traditionally problematic for thrillers in general. It wraps everything up nicely and in a satisfying way.
Although the premise is undoubtedly far-fetched, Malaysian director Sam Quah succeeds in constructing the kind of tightly wound suspense piece for which disbelief can be suspended.
When Sheep Without A Shepherd goes big, it goes really big, both in terms of melodrama and directorial flair. Chen is delightfully wicked as the morally compromised chief of a corrupt and abusive police department, however, and the plot is engrossing enough to forgive the movie’s excesses.
A story like this can’t help seeming far-fetched at times but the emotional stakes are so high and the plot so pacy and intricately woven that most viewers will gladly suspend disbelief and enjoy a ride packed with hair-raising close calls and narrow escapes.
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
Whether snarling behind shades in uniform or off hours in elegant dresswear, Chen is a rule-breaking hoot, never more so than when she’s gearing up to heap abuse on a near-tears little girl in order to break her.