Film Review: Beyond the Sin (恶行之外) (2025) - Hong Kong / China
Rating: 5/10
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Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
2025 Review Count - 60
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Kwok Man-Ki’s “Beyond the Sin” is a film that drowns in its own ambition, a murky puddle of rain-soaked clichés and narrative missteps. It wants desperately to be a gritty, labyrinthine thriller, but instead feels like a jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces. The ingredients are all there: a grieving father, a shadowy serial killer, neon-lit alleyways, and a cast of Hong Kong heavyweights. Yet the result is less a feast than a half-cooked takeout box, greasy with unrealized potential.
Louis Koo stars as a former police inspector turned security chief, whose teenage daughter is brutally murdered alongside other girls marked by disabilities in their left legs. The police pin the crime on a troubled teen, but Koo consumed by grief, embarks on a rogue investigation, stumbling upon a retarded street girl (Renci Yeung) clutching a trinket tied to his daughter. Meanwhile, another girl—a politician’s wayward daughter—narrowly escapes the killer’s grip, exposing a web of exploitation. The trail leads Le to a scruffy van driver (Gordon Lam) and a fractured family hiding unspeakable secrets.
If this sounds convoluted, it is. The script, lurches between timelines and subplots like a drunkard navigating Lan Kwai Fong. Characters are introduced with fanfare, only to vanish into the narrative fog: Karena Lam, as Koo’s shattered wife, appears only for convenience, her trauma reduced to a mere footnote. Gordon Lam, an actor capable of volcanic intensity, is stranded as a cipher—a greasy-haired weirdo who lurks in corners, his motives as opaque as the film’s editing.
Visually, “Beyond the Sin” is pure Hong Kong id. Cinematographer Jason Kwan bathes the screen in inky shadows and sulfuric streetlight, while rain cascades like tears from a vengeful sky. These elements should coalesce into something haunting, but Man’s direction lacks the discipline to harness them. Scenes pivot abruptly between timelines, disorienting without rewarding the viewer’s patience. An early interrogation sequence crosscuts with flashbacks of Koo’s daughter playing piano—a heavy-handed metaphor for harmony shattered—but the effect is less poetic than pretentious.
The film’s pacing suffers, too. With a short running time, it feels both rushed and sluggish, sprinting through plot points while lingering on gratuitous cruelty. A subplot involving a sex-trafficked teen is introduced, exploited for shock value, then abandoned. Another thread—the abusive mother of the disabled girl—hints at generational trauma but resolves in a shrug. By the time the third act arrives, hurling revelations about family ties and past sins, the emotional payoff feels unearned.
Louis Koo, Hong Kong’s busiest leading man, sleepwalks through the leading role. His performance is a single note of clenched-jaw anguish, lacking the vulnerability that might humanize his quest. When he pleads with the retarded Dingdang for answers, his desperation feels mechanical, a programmed response rather than a father’s ache. The script does him no favors, reducing his arc to a series of brooding close-ups and ill-advised fistfights.
The supporting cast fares worse. Gordon Lam, an actor who can convey menace with a sideways glance, is reduced to a plot device—a twitchy loner whose backstory is dumped in a rushed monologue. Karena Lam, whose haunting presence is given barely five minutes of screen time, her character’s grief truncated to a montage of weeping.
“Beyond the Sin” was gutted in post-production to appease censors, and the evidence is onscreen. Scenes end mid-breath; subplots dangle like loose wires. A lurid undercurrent—hinted at in discussions of teen escorts and abusive families—feels sanitized, leaving the violence to linger without context. Editor’s choppy chronology suggests a filmmaker at odds with his own material, unsure whether to prioritize mood or coherence.
”Beyond the Sin” is not without merit. Jason Kwan’s visuals are sumptuously grim, and a tender, unsettling turn as the disabled Dingdang. But these bright spots drown in the film’s murk. Kwok, a longtime assistant director, has clearly studied the masters. Yet his debut lacks the control to balance style and story. What remains is a curiosity: a film that mistakes rain for depth, noise for nuance.
In the end, “Beyond the Sin” is less a thriller than a funeral dirge—a dirge for its own squandered potential. (Neo, 2025)