Blood 13 (2018) User Reviews

average....

[lifelinespublishing · 5/10 · 5 October 2019]

IMHO., the pacing was a bit slow for my taste as have just watched this last night, the acting was average was well,. all actors played and was right for the role they played, the ending was a bit rushed for me., overall., it will keep you engaged but once you knew who the killer was, it was all downhill from there.

I can't say I will recommend it but it's for your own discretion.

It was rather mundane and sort of boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 22 August 2020]

I had no idea what I was in for when I sat down to watch this 2018 movie titled "Blood 13" (aka "Xue shi san") from writer Tu Hu and director Candy Li. But given the movie's cover, I assumed it was a horror movie of sorts. Well, turns out that this was a crime thriller movie.

The storyline told in "Blood 13" was a bit confusing, and if I have to be bluntly honest, it was a bit boring. There was just simply too little of any interest happening throughout the course of the movie. And that resulted in the movie feeling like it a was 4 hour movie that I was watching and not just the 99 minutes that the movie ran for.

If felt like writer Tu Hu had set out to accomplish a bit too much with the storyline presented in "Blood 13", and it wasn't a wholly accomplished endeavor. I must admit that I was only mildly entertained by what transpired throughout the course of the movie.

The acting in the movie was adequate, although I can't really point out any single actor or actress and say that he or she was the star of the movie. I believe it was the mundane storyline and script that was the cause of this.

I am rating "Blood 13" a very mediocre five out of ten stars. If you enjoy a good crime thriller, then there are far better choices readily available. And while I managed to sit through all of "Blood 13", this is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time.

Slow Start Hampers The Overall Effect of The Film

[kasserine · 6/10 · 30 December 2021]

I have a really strong interest in Asian Cinema, so I'm already in this film's corner from the start. However, it really did take me awhile to get into the film and the plot.

Essentially, women are found dead in a red dress with all of their blood drained in different locations throughout the city. So, yeah, there is a serial killer on the loose. Perfectly reasonable plot for any crime/thriller movie. So, it's a worthwhile start.

The problem is for the first third of the movie, there is a lot of characters yelling at each other without any real character development and a fair amount of false starts on suspects that seem to confuse the plot more then advance it. I don't want to go into too much detail as this might ruin some potential surprises, but, needless to say it all just slows the film down.

Eventually, it is revealed who the killer is and we get to see him out and about as the police try and track him down. This is about the point the film shifts focus on a detective who failed to catch the killer years earlier. He is a likable character and the film starts to pick up steam. Everything becomes a lot more suspenseful and interesting and there is a much more classic and compelling matching of wits between the killer and cop. Problem is, more then half the film has already elapsed.

There is also a female detective who, initially, seemed to have been the lead character, until the movie shifted the focus to the older, haunted detective. She seems more to be a plot device to increase tension towards the end of the film and less a real character. She spends a lot of the movie being angry and yelling that they have to catch the killer.

Not exactly selling anyone on seeing this, I realize, but when, about halfway through, the killer is revealed and the focus is on the older detective catching him, things really pick up. This is the part worth waiting for and the part of Blood 13 I liked.

Not the best Asian crime thriller by any means, but has it's moments and might be worth a look. In the end, I enjoyed it.