First, is there a sort of wave of "brilliant detectives pulled into possibly-supernatural cases in period pieces" going around Asia for the past 15 years or so, or has this always been a big part of these countries' genre fiction and it's just hitting me now? "Detective Kien" has surface similarities to China's "Detective Dee" and Korea's "Detective K" series seem in sort of the same vein, but maybe those have always been there, but we're just getting a wider range of films from these countries now.
Second, "these countries" includes Vietnam, and I've probably gone on here before about how as an American, I've mostly seen Vietnam presented through the prism of the war and how that affected Americans and thus seeing The Rebel at Fantasia nearly 20 years ago was jaw-dropping, and even that was made with a lot of people who had come back home to Vietnam from America, and it would be another different sort of wake-up call when some more contemporary movies showed up and they were in the suburbs; it's worth remembering that, rather than sort of freezing 50 years ago, this is a country that has an immense urban population even if Americans think of it as jungle villages.
Now, admittedly, Detective Kien takes place in a Nineteenth Century village, but it's still kind of interesting in terms of getting a handle on this place, especially a few scenes near the end, where either the language or subtitle choices are kind of noteworthy: Going against the monarchy is described as "blasphemy" as opposed to "treason", which made me think about how monarchy is often justified via links to religion and a vague idea that some king ages ago was chosen by god(s), but that becomes something mostly pay lip service to: This is supposed to be true, but we all kind of know that a king's power is earthly inertia at this point, not heavenly investiture. Maybe that wasn't so much the case there and then, though.
In another spot near to that one, it's mentioned that a family attempting to usurp power 30 years ago was stopped by "informants", not exactly a word with a positive connotation, when you could use "whistleblowers" or the like. It's kind of jarring, because even authoritarian countries don't necessarily use that terminology. You sure don't hear it in Chinese movies.
So, that's kind of interesting to me. The movie's mostly just good for what it is, though.
Thám Tử Kiên: Kỳ Án Không Đầu (Detective Kien: The Headless Horror)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 4 June 2025 in AMC Causeway Street #12 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)
The thing about Detective Kien: The Headless Horror that I find striking is that there are long stretches where the film spends little if any time on the Drowning Ghost that has been feeding on human heads for the past five years or so, and that's okay. This is a good little period thriller without the horror-movie hook that probably brought it most of the attention it has received, and I found myself thinking that I'd actually be okay if it didn't get back to "the good stuff".
Indeed, while Miss Moon (Dinh Ngọc Diệp) describes the Drowning Ghost to Judge's Detective Kien (Quốc Huy) when she writes asking him to investigate the disappearance of her niece Nga (Đoàn Minh Anh), she is adamant that it is not the work of the Ghost, if only because there is no headless body. The local chief, Liem Quan (Xuan Trang) has been stonewalling her, but that may just because Nga was always an outcast; her mother (Moon's sister) abandoned her family when young, and father Vinh (Quoc Cuong) was not much involved, often leaving Moon to look after her until she, too, departed, only to return recently. Moon and Kien soon turn up more, though - an argument between Nga and Tuyet (Anh Pham), the entitled daughter of Liem and Lady Vuong (Mỹ Uyên), ceramics made by Tuyet's fiancé Thac (Quốc Anh) in Nga's room, and a break-in by a burglar (Sỹ Toàn) who apparently sought to destroy those pieces.
Plus, as mentioned, there's apparently a river monster that has devoured the heads of eight people over the past five years.
Writer/director Victor Vu opts to dive directly into the missing-person case.without spending a whole lot of time looking into the monster series, which is maybe a risk, but Vu plays it out well, building his mystery plot so that Kien, Moon, and the audience find one juicy revelation after another. It's not actually a very good mystery - there are a couple of bits in the home stretch that go beyond not just being fair play into "wait, what?" territory - but for most of the movie, he's good at dangling things just close enough to feel like they're in reach, and then we're over here, so the picture always feels like it's about to come together in some way. He sprinkles enough of the Drowning Ghost in to remind the audience it's there and make us wonder how it connects, although, again, things falter a bit toward the end when it becomes clear that he's not going to stick the "both halves of the story come together in a single climax" landing.
The cast has the right pulp vibe as well, not veering into camp but often hitting that spot where one can see the niche each character fills well enough but maybe just playing it big enough that it could be a mask. Quốc Huy gives Kien authority while also seeming to hold some in reserve and managing to see a bit flustered by Moon's clear interest. Dinh Ngọc Diệp is a delight as Moon, making both her fierce advocacy for Nga and what seems like a playful crush on Kien (who arrested her husband for corruption) work work while often smiling just a bit too much to the point where one starts to wonder if she's the mastermind behind this whole thing. Xuan Trang, Mỹ Uyên, and Anh Pham play the sort of hissable aristocrats where any could be worse or better than expected. Đoàn Minh Anh's Nga radiates sadness but also comes alive.
They're in a nice-looking movie that is obviously not at the scale of an American blockbuster but certainly gets a lot out of what's available for filmmakers in Vietnam, not least that you can apparently point a camera in a great many directions and catch some terrific scenery; the villages and palace look pretty nice too. Vu is smooth in how he has Kien visualize things in a way that's obviously not literal but not showy as one often sees in, say, modern Sherlock Holmes adaptations. When we see the Drowning Ghost, it's got elements of CGI and rubber-suit monsters that look uncanny in the right way. At the climax, the film both embraces and subverts cliché by having a slap-fight that could be silly feel like the stakes are as high as the cool swordfight.
The film is apparently a spin-off from Vu's previous film Người Vợ Cuối Cùng (The Last Wife), although I'm not sure that Quốc Huy was the one playing Kien in that movie; at any rate, one can go into this one more or less cold and not necessarily feel like it's incomplete without the follow-up that the end suggests is coming. The end is a bit dragged out, but otherwise, it's a neat little thriller that anyone who enjoys this sort of mystery can enjoy while also feeling distinctly Vietnamese.
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