The Burns of Sin (2018)

Part Psychological Thriller, Part Criminal Investigation

This film is part psychological thriller, part criminal investigation. It jumps back and forth between character perspectives, centering on no single character. Su Cheng receives the majority of screen time, but often through other's perspectives of him.

There is some confusion in that it leaps back and forth between the present and past in Su Cheng's perspective, but that seems to be part of his psychosis to some extent. His trauma stems substantially from his childhood and past interactions with Wang and Lin Jing so their presence in his life now naturally triggers flashbacks.

There is a constant sense of the unreliable narrator in all perspectives, largely driven by everyone's mistrust of each other combined with Su Cheng and Mo Chao's psychological disorders and Lin Jing's seemingly irrational faith in her husband. This unreliability drives the story as every detail you are given has to be reassessed in terms of the person introducing it. You sympathize with the police's frustration in the investigation as they are constantly given only part of the information by witnesses.

Unless you were paying very close attention, the film does throw you a curve ball in the end. The mystery of how Wang died and who killed him really was very well performed and written. Although the film itself was relatively slow moving, sometimes confusing in the way scenes were sliced together, and wasn't anything award winning the end. . . the overarching mystery itself was unique and interesting.

Su Cheng and Mo Chao both played their roles very well, although some of the other character's roles left something to be desired. It was interesting how Lin Jing comes across as a victim but ultimately is not particularly a sympathetic one. It isn't clear if that was intentional or a result of poor acting, but it did contribute to the overall plot in some ways.

Nothing too graphic in our opinion, although you may be squicked by the dead bodies with burned faces and the one scene where XXXXXX is burned. Not for kids certainly. 🕵️‍♂️

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