Visually The Looming Tower looked all okay, with a dark rainy ambiance throughout the whole movie, but the story has plot holes and could have been much better. My Mandarin is useless but I'm pretty sure my translated subtitles came from Google Translate, in other words they made no sense. So that also contributed to the fact that I could not fully enjoy the movie without worrying what they were talking about. The acting wasn't bad either, but some actions scenes should have been better. Overall it's not my cup of tea.
The Looming Storm
2017 [CHINESE]
Action / Crime
Plot summary
Yu, a self-assured factory guard, fancies himself a detective and begins poking his nose into a murder investigation.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
December 01, 2018 at 01:29 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
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Plot holes.
A beautuful story...
It's a pleasent surprise that all movie fans need to see. Besides murders being in the center of the story-telling, It's actually a multi-layered social drama, exploring many subjects, an unconventional love, depression, living in a provincial place where life almost equals death, etc.
Element of Crime in China
This is not a standard thriller/detective story, even though the pursuit of a serial killer is a major plot element.
The action takes place in the mid-1990s, at a time of economic change and modernisation. The main character is a factory security chief, whose job is prevention of theft by the workers; he has one young assistant. When a dead body is found near the factory, the main character tries to help the police, but is seen by them as a "wannabe".
The development of the plot follows his pursuit of the killer, and shows how far he is prepared to go to succeed, at significant cost to others and to himself.
Any more information would amount to a spoiler; but think of a mixture of Element of Crime (but the detective is not the killer), Taxi Driver (without guns), and Leviathan (without overt political criticism). Unique. Beautifully acted and photographed.
To understand the film, it would probably help to know something about recent Chinese history. No, it does not go quickly, but it really stays with you after you have seen it.