Lost In The Stars review: Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni and Janice Man embroiled in twisty, entertaining mystery thriller

Lost In The Stars (PG13)  

Starring  Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, Janice Man

Directed by Cui Rui, Liu Xiang  

This suspense-mystery about a missing woman is more preposterously twisty than a multi-headed snake.

But it's zip-along entertaining.

Adapted from a 1990 Russian pic and 1960 French play, both titled Trap For A Lonely Man, this Mainland China hit — its Chinese title means “Her disappearance” — is a brisk flick that makes little sense but exudes ample fun.

Per mainland practice, its over-staged revelation hammers home bluntly that crime does not pay.

Chinese mystery thrillers are usually starkly conclusive. Compared to sometimes open-ended Korean or Japanese ones.

Quality abounds, though, via good acting, a busy pace, catchy setting, curious story and hidden motives, as penned by co-writer, Chen Sicheng, director of the Detective Chinatown hit series.

Lost In The Stars clobbered Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in China. Impressive, considering it isn't a comedy, sci-fi or patriotic war movie.  

Lost in the Stars: (from left) Du Jiang and Zhu Yilong try to book tickets for Meg 2: The Trench online.

At the fictional island of Barlandia stuffed with Malaysian signboards and Thai nightlife, diving instructor He Fei (Embrace Again’s Zhu Yilong resembling a younger Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) totally panics when his wife, Li Muzi (Huang Ziqi), vanishes.

They’re on a diving holiday for their first anniversary. Looks normal. On the surface, at least, as people are not who they claim to be.  

Everything turns sinister as He, stuck on a foreign land — scriptwriter Chen’s speciality — with unhelpful cops, finds a femme-fatale imposter (Janice Man from Cold War 2) posing as his wife.

Despite his denials, the stranger’s passport, photos and CCTV footage say that she’s indeed his spouse. Her whisper of “I take pleasure in torturing you so” at an elegant beach dinner, notwithstanding.

Kinda like Harrison Ford in 1988’s missing-missus Frantic. But swankier.

The only person who believes the desperate hubby isn’t a basket-case is a worldly female Chinese lawyer-fixer, Chen Mai (Shock Wave 2’s Ni Ni), who’s conveniently there. She knows her way around, speaks English, intimidates ang mohs, and seems to realise what’s going on. 

 “Fake or not, she’s still your wife,” she cautions, helping He navigate what looks like an identity-theft scam targeting foreigners for money since the MIA wife is loaded.       

As the pair digs further, the tale careens into a truth-seeking dunno-who-did-what-dunnit, roping in a hitman, car chase, jungle hideout and a secret lab with a doctor looking like he’d escaped from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Assuming that you yourself haven’t become kookoo yet.

Gotta stop here. Except to say that elaborate schemes of duplicity are in play and to not go utterly “You’ve got to be kidding me”, they collide into each other.

Co-directors Cui Rui and Liu Xiang make the movie pretend to be more layered than it truly is. But they have fashioned a tourist brochure with verve by getting great mileage out of the exotic setting and from Zhu and Ni sharing tense scenes together as a stressed-out couple needing an actual vacation.

It could be a cautionary tale for PRC tourists in tropical isles here or something about the inequality of life as He, the harried husband, has a rags-to-riches chip on his shoulder.

Or maybe I’m just wandering off in an unexpectedly loopy direction.

The way this enjoyable mystery makes its mazy plot do. (3.5/5 stars)

Photos: Golden Village