Every crime thriller maker knows two-dimensional baddies are out of fashion, but still few manage to discuss the grey areas of human nature with insight and impact.

Unfortunately, director Cao Baoping fails to buck this trend in his latest film, The Dead End, an ambitious project that has a good many laudable moments but eventually reverts to an unconvincing drama.

The film continues to follow in the footsteps of Cao's previous and well-received film The Equation of Love & Death (2008) in subverting expectations and provoking reaction by looking into the seedier end of society with great storytelling and filmmaking.

Deng Chao (right) as Xin Xiaofeng, Duan Yihong as Yi Guchun in The Dead End

Police story

Based on Xu Yigua's 2010 novel Sunspots, though with significant changes, The Dead End begins as three young gang members Xin Xiaofeng (Deng Chao), Yang Zidao (Guo Tao) and Chen Bijue (Gao Hu) run away from a mansion in Su'an, Fujian Province, in which an entire family has just been killed.

Xin frets about a baby girl spared from the massacre and, rather than leaving her to die, he returns to the scene to fetch her, despite the protests of his cohorts.

Seven years later, the three men are living in Xiamen and raising the girl, who is named Weiba, together - Yang as a taxi driver, Chen as a fisherman, and Xin, most ironically, as an auxiliary police officer.

The new chief of police, a penetrating, witty and bold Yi Guchun (Duan Yihong), soon recognizes Xin as promising police material, but also begins to suspect Xin's association with the murder case in Su'an, where Yi worked previously.

On the surface, the main narrative is on one hand about Yi's investigation, and on the other about three guilty men making atonement, with the two story lines becoming heavily intertwined.

Guo Tao as Yang Zidao in The Dead End

Promising start

The film is overall a pleasure to watch, largely because the first story line is carefully shot to build stress and confusion, and brilliantly cut to achieve a heart-thumping, yet unhurried pace.

The interplay between Xin and Yi is particularly engaging. Their continuous mutual probing makes for the biggest highlight.

Yi excels in blending real confidence and a feigned casualness to carefully study and test his suspect. Meanwhile Xin, very often a timid and vulnerable figure in contrast, displays an abysmal quality that makes him Yi's equal.

This would not have been possible without brilliant acting from Duan and Deng. Though the two of them, together with Guo, won the best actor award at this year's Shanghai International Film Festival for this film, the lion's share of the credit should go to Deng.

It is a genuine surprise to see an actor known for high-key characters who are rebellious, arrogant or both getting into the skin of someone soft-natured yet tacitly strong-minded and persistent.

The film is also directed with flair to create suspense and excitement. In one impressive scene, Xin leaves Yi's office after a conversation. The camera lingers on the staircase, and a few seconds later, Xin returns. The camera then takes its time following Xin as he waits for Yi to leave.

Xin then breaks into the office. It is only when Xin bends over Yi's desk that we realize he has returned to wipe off the fingerprints that he inadvertently left there, and which could be used by Yi to conclusively link him to the previous case.


Final letdown

While the film starts off strongly, the fact that coincidences play a vital role in keeping the story going feels contrived, although this could well be a deliberate advice used to help condense the dense source material.

The real weakness comes during the last 10 minutes or so of the film. There are two twists, both of which emphasize Xin's great love for Weiba, and they are both shocking.

However, the second makes one wonder why Yang and Chen would also display affection for the girl, and make such large sacrifices on her behalf. It is a narrative loophole that makes many of the plot points that preceded it unspool as ungrounded and implausible, and undermines much of what has been built up over the course of the film.

The director brushes over such doubts, dissatisfyingly rendering the protagonists as pathetic people caught up in unlucky circumstances, rather than as complex human beings.

A poster for the film

Everyone's a critic

Hua Baobei

29, auditing

"The film has pushed the limits of the current strict censorship, and that boldness pays off in a nerve-packing and often surprising experience. It has its own style while also making for a good commercial work, which I find to be rare in Chinese cinema."

Miss Liu

34, lecturer

"It starts nicely, largely because of the excellent actors. But as the tension escalates and the plot develops, too much information seems dubious and unlikely, and consequently the actors seem to be overreacting a lot of the time."

Lanusik

27, journalist

"The movie is good. Its storytelling is like peeling an onion - the closer one gets to the core, the more tears and sensation one feels. It has managed to dissect the good and evil of humanity without justice being compromised."