DETECTIVE KIEN: THE HEADLESS HORROR Review: Chilling Terror in Rural Vietnam

Was it The Drowning Ghost? Or was it something even more evil?

Detective Kien: The Headless Horror
The film opens Thursday, May 29, in select theaters throughout the U.S., Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. On Friday, May 30, it opens in Canada, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the UK, all through 3388 Films.

Throughout the world, urban legends about drowning ghosts, usually vengeful, have thrived. In Vietnam, they are known as ma da, and in Detective Kien: The Headless Horror, eight bodies fitting the titular description have been found in a remote, lakeside village, over the past five years in the 19th century, with the deaths ascribed to The Drowning Ghost.

Understandably, everyone is tense. When a young woman disappears, with only one shoe left behind by the lake, everyone concludes that she is the latest victim. Miss Moon, however, believes that Nga, her beloved niece, is still alive, since no body has been recovered, and so she writes a letter to Detective Kien (Quoc Huy), the official Detective of the Judge who oversees the district, pleading for him to investigate.

The investigation unfolds in an incongruously gorgeous landscape, complete with lush vegetation, rolling hills, and a placid lake. Prim and proper, Detective Kien makes sure that his actions are always above reproach -- declining to walk with the younger Miss Moon through the village, for example, to avoid any speculation about why an unmarried man and a single woman are walking together -- and his face remains as placid as the lake, unhurried and unemotional.

Yet he is a dogged, intuitive investigator, and he readily puts aside his own assumptions and suspicions when the evidence warrants. As with any savvy investigator, he is extremely observant and uses his logical mind to process information deliberately, without the need for a partner to corroborate or challenge his conclusions, which are always correct.

Miss Moons' character wavers at times; initially, she seems bowled over by Detective Kien's modest self-confidence, but she herself grows in confidence, driven by her overwhelming need to find the missing Nga, whose life she fears remains in danger. And her motivation is revealed in a flashback to her younger years that sheds light on her personal history and place in the village hierarchy.

Indeed, the village is ruled by Chief Liem and his wife, Lady Vuoung; together, they rule imperiously over their own household, including meek maid Mui, and Dong, who does everything they don't want to do, though he's not clearly not happy with the arrangement. The other major force in the village is Shaman Tinh, who the villagers rely upon for spiritual guidance, which seems to be limited to performing rituals over the recently deceased, though he's always ready to hand out special potions to those in need.

As Detective Kien begins to piece things together, it becomes more clear that this is an atmospheric mystery, rather than a horror thriller. Supernatural elements appear to play a part -- after all, the village as a whole is convinced that The Drowning Ghost is real and threatens them all -- but Detective Kien is skeptical. He doesn't set out to disprove or discredit The Drowning Ghost itself, and he never mocks the villagers' belief in such a thing.

Instead, he's focused on finding Nga. In his investigation, he's also capable of rising up in furious outrage when he suspects that someone is not telling the truth, or may be concealing a vital piece of the puzzle. With a classic mystery as the primary driver of the movie, that also allows for several flashbacks to fill in the background of several key characters, allowing their motivations -- and possible motives for murder -- to come to the fore.

All in all, Detective Kien: The Headless Horror is an absorbing mystery that sometimes gets bloody and even occasionally gut-wrenching, yet avoids shock kills and clever cuts that are the stock in trade for modern Hollywood horror movies. The horror here comes from the evil that men -- and sometimes women -- are capable of inflicting upon other, usually innocent and often hapless, people.

And without giving anything away, the penultimate sequence is superbly exciting, and will reward patient viewers with its unexpectedly well-executed action.