How would it feel to be blind? How would it feel to be blind because it was more important for you to play bad cop than respect your brother? How would it feel to be blind and lose your brother because of the same? I might find life a little tough after that.
And, indeed, three years after the accident that cost her eyes and her brother’s life, former police cadet Lu Xiaoxing (Mi Yang) is finding life a struggle. There are, luckily for us, not a great number of flashbacks to the tragic series of events – Xiaoxing dragging her truant brother off stage, handcuffing him to the car interior, his interference in her driving, and the wrecked car falling off a bridge. You don’t need to relive it to know the impact: for one thing, the song her brother was singing when she interrupted keeps playing … everywhere.
Xiaoxing seems to have gotten the routine part of her life back together when we meet her again, but she is out-and-about without her seeing-eye dog when her cab hits a pedestrian. And then the plot happens – the cabbie is weird about it, insisting that he hit a deer. But Xiaoxing has traded sight for insight and she knows something is up; she also knows, however, that she might be in danger and while the film was not entirely clear why a predatory cabbie fled from a traumatized blind woman, we accept it’s due to her aggression.
I know, I know. So what, right? A cab runs somebody over and The Witness is blind. Not exactly front page drama. But there’s more – a series of abductions have taken place over the past months. And while Xiaoxing insists on foul play when she reports the accident, no evidence of the crime exists. Meanwhile, an actual eye witness has surfaced, punk sk8rboy Lin Chang (Han Lu). Ok, now this part I don’t get and it’s probably cultural – the eye witness insists
that the car is a Volkswagen Golf VI while heroine Xiaoxing insists the car was a cab because she heard the meter going. Is there no room for both in China? In my neighborhood, cab shape is limited by just what a guy dares to show up driving. And is there no record of cabbie pickups, because that would have made tracking the hit-and-run driver a tad easier, dig?
I idea of an impaired witness is hardly new, but still compelling. The Witness reminded me a great deal of Russian thriller Mute Witness, or any one fo those Alex Cross detective films – except instead of Morgan Freeman running around solving stuff, there’s a goofy Chinese kid trying to score. And now that I think of it, I’d like to see a James Patterson film where Alex Cross is a goofy Chinese loverboy. Hmmmm, while the possibilities are not endless, I can think of a few others: Ageusic Witness? Anosmic Witness? Anyway, I doubt the crimes would ever get solved, but maybe that’s ok.
♪I can’t see clearly now, but something’s wrong,
This cabbie hit all obstacles in his way
Years ago an accident left me blind
It’s gonna be a long (long), cop (cop)
Procedure day♫
Not Rated, 112 Minutes
D: Sang-hoon Ahn
W: Apparently, this film wrote itself … well, it is a remake
Genre: It’s definitely not a comedy, so maybe all the other genres are enhanced
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: James Patterson fans
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Taxi drivers
♪ Parody inspired by “I Can See Clearly Now”
