One suitcase holds a ton of money; the other contains a body. You can have part of both or neither, but you cannot by party to just one case; what’s it gonna be?
This is the intrigue for Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot, a Chinese-originated combination locked-door mystery and crime thriller. The fun begins when four strangers are invited by text to one of those stage opera/mah jong houses you’ve heard so much about. I find the venue so funny. I have no doubt this combination stage/gaming mosh pit is all the rage in China or even in American Chinatowns, but in the United States, one usually must frequent a grammar school gym to find an adequate venue for both Bingo and “Death of a Salesman” starring your niece.
You can imagine this much – four strangers invited to a bit of mahjong and lunch. The leader here is Nine Cakes (Yu Qian). Psst, I don’t think that’s his real name. The delivery kid (Li Jiu Xiao) seems to fall back on the quixotic wisdom of “nothing can’t be undone by a hotpot,” which is where we get the title. In this film, it kinda comes off like “Gomer Pyle” saying, “Shazam!”
Naturally, the topic over food and game play becomes, “What to do about that douchebag Director Fu (Tian Yu)?” I’m paraphrasing and simplifying, but the four come to three conclusions:1) Director Fu has more money than he should. 2) If that money were to go missing, nobody would report it. And 3) maybe we should go take that money.
Which they do.
And when they return to the theater, the anonymous strangers have two full cases to show for their hard work: one contains a ton of money and the other contains the lifeless body of Director Fu.
Wellllllll, haven’t we got a pickle?
It’s hard not to like a plot like this, especially when so few films are willing to be this ambitious with character interplay. You see how this goes – the four strangers are suddenly all in this 
together. There’s no magical “opting out” at this stage. Yeah, maybe an easy robbery was the plan, but now the Rubicon has been crossed, locking everybody together in this mess. And there’s a good bet that they’ve all withheld relevant information, y’know?
Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a HotPot has a decent Usual Suspects feel. It’s not as good, of course, But one has to appreciate the desire and ambition of the milieu. It occurs to me at this point that the work was almost certainly adapted from a play, and while the sets and cast were limited, the film doesn’t feel like a play, which is a huge point in its favor. Can’t say I was steamrolled by any of the participants here, but I’m happy to recommend all the same. Three stars on HotPot, nice flavor, not too spicy.
Four strangers were invited for crime
In a plot verging on the sublime
You can’t split the loot
While ignoring the suit
Guessing somebody here is gonna do time
Not Rated, 129 Minutes
Director: Sheng Ding
Writer: Sheng Ding, Wang Hang, Xiu, XiaoNan
Genre: Dinner and a show
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Mystery fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Not a great film for romantics
