Sheep Without a Shepherd (2019) Poster

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6/10
A very weak ending to an otherwise solid remake! [+56%]
arungeorge1328 February 2021
The almost-universal appeal of Drishyam's plot, adapted to suit Chinese audiences, does away with the soapy-family-drama elements of the original and gets into thriller-mode from the 15th minute. While I appreciate this aspect and the little contextual tweaks that director Sam Quah incorporates into the film, Sheep Without a Shepherd poses a same-but-different set of questions regarding the crime's cover-up. More than that, the climax here is handled in the most unconvincing way (yes, it's different from that of Drishyam!). The making style and visual aesthetics are far better here, however. The performances too, are pretty good. As such, Sheep Without a Shepherd did entertain me but that ill-conceived ending takes away an extra star.
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8/10
Perfect casting 👌
p-akhil8717 March 2020
The climax didn't do justice to the Malayalam film 'Drishyam'.Otherwise it's a very good remake.
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8/10
When Family Is What Matters
alisonc-11 September 2020
Li and his family are excited when teenage daughter PingPing is accepted to an elite school, more expensive than they can really afford but still a great chance for the family. They don't know that a fellow student is a very entitled bully, who drugs PingPing's drink at a social gathering and films himself raping her; they also don't know that this bully is the son of the police chief of the city. When the boy tries to blackmail Pingping into further humiliation, her mother trails them and, in the ensuing confusion, mother and daughter kill the boy. They manage to bring his body back to their home by the cemetery, unfortunately seen by the 6-year-old girl in the family. And so starts a cat and mouse tale: the police chief wants, naturally, to find her son; one of her lieutenants has had it in for Li for ages, and is determined to pin the crime on him with no evidence, and Li knows how to create a reality that creates an alibi, along with the help of myriad friends and neighbours. Who's version of the truth will win out, after all is said and done?

What's great about this film is that, yes, the family is the culprit, but yes, the boy deserves his fate - and whatever his parents feels about it, they must know that too. The most interesting character to me was the cop who hated, hated Li, for apparently no reason; he was the driving force behind the persecution of this family and yet we never really know why. In the end, it's quite puzzling, but essentially, on both sides of the equation (minus the bad cop), you understand why each person did what they did. I can't say I liked the film, because of its content generally, but I certainly respect its ambivalence. Recommended.
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7/10
GOATED!
MadamWarden20 December 2021
A great movie. Full of twists and turns. Certainly one of the better vengeance movies.

Not sure about the ending though. Made me drop my 8 to a 7. Unnecessary!
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6/10
Almost a Classic - Sheep Without a Shepherd
arthur_tafero31 December 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Sam Quah is a great talent; one of the best directors in Asia in my estimation. And this film had the potential to be an Asian classic, if only it hadn't opted for the unrealistic ending. Joan Chen steals the film as the heavy, but the other actors do a fine job as well. The production values are first-rate and the references to classic films in the movie such as Montage and others was a nice touch. However, it is readily apparent that Hitchcock also had a great influence on Quah. His car scene is almost identical to the one in Psycho, but that film seems to have been ignored by the brilliant police chief, while catching a far less recognized film like Montage. The film is terrific until the last ten minutes, and if you don't want to see the following spoiler, I recommend you stop reading the review here. Suffice it to say, the ending was a big letdown. The film veers wildly from rooting for the family to get away with the crime to the almost certainty of them getting caught. This tension is wonderfully created by the script and the director. However, the highly unbelievable ending of two "reformed" monsters (who had spawned a third monster), becoming saintly and humble is topped only by the highly unlikely behavior of the protagonist confessing his crime to them to relieve their anxiety. Please. No person who had gone to the extremes that this individual had gone (and he was meticulous) to have his family unscathed, would just give himself to the authorities and leave his family helpless at the end. It would make no sense whatsoever if he really cared for his family. Who wouldn't put their family first before these two creeps of human beings posing as caring parents? Sorry, there is just no sale for those last ten minutes. The film would have been a classic in the mold of The Usual Suspects and one or two Hitchcock films. But the filmmakers, producer, and whoever made the decision to go with those last phony ten minutes ruined a potential classic; opting for a corny, unrealistic set of behaviors and outcomes. What a pity. Still good viewing.
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6/10
A cautionary tale: Don't spoil your kids!
evening126 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
A gripping crime story with bits of social commentary.

Here we have portraits of two types of parents -- the seemingly good ones who overindulge their children, and the glossier ones distracted by high-powered careers.

Set in Thailand among Mandarin speakers, this beautifully photographed film tells the story of Weijie (Yang Xiao), who tries to clean up after his daughter (Audrey Hui) is exploited by the son of a mayor and police chief (Joan Chen).

"It's Dad's fault. I should have protected you," he tells Ping Ping.

The film creates great suspense and character interest. However, the bad guys could have been drawn more subtly. Ms. Chen's shades-wearing cop is leavened a bit by a hallucination of her son, but too much of the time she's a demonic stick figure.

There's interesting animal imagery here. When a shellshocked Ping Ping is led from class, her teacher is speaking of "sheep with poor eyes (that) can easily stray. So they are often eaten by large animals."

And how. We want to protect our children, but are we, really?
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10/10
Awesome watch
MovieBuff_sl12 January 2020
I gave this a 10-star rating for a movie when Chinese is not even my first language. The cast was excellent and plot interesting. Didn't agree with the ending but otherwise could be a 11-star rating. *wink*
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6/10
a bit over-dramatised
welshnew5018 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
After finishing watching this movie, i could not help but wonder if in a novel original, if there is one, or perhaps in the conceptualisations of the writer / re-namer for western audiences, there was a catholic-values ATTEMPT, to pose a only-their-way layer-of-reality over reality, inamongst the commonality of sometimes but sometimes-not , the societal value of honesty in inflammatory situations,

which without having missed the point,

such as the confession method,

can ALSO be MIS-used to falsely validate falsities AS-TRUTH, when society or authority pretends as though things like character of-a-person can be trusted over individuals self-interest , when the pressure is on.

Although it is a nice dream, WERE we all to alwasy be honest, the cold hard reality that we are not, undermines this fantasy on the part of the endless billions of well-wishers wishing that RELIABILITY could come, from systematic advice / guidance,..

... compared to coming-FROM, things like forensics, new technology ( like in some scenes mid-way through the film where the dad is taking extra precautions as he's destroying evidence ) , and the fear of it ... or things like internet securities, and more recently, hackers acting for things much less sterotypically than they used to - hackers in movies, used to be little other than characters like the Boris character out of James Bond, or pffff ... worse along those lines - little more than hyper-reactive, hyper-over-thinking greedy, peverted, breakaways with no plans for their future.

REAL WORLD things like the exposE of the Panama-papers, has shown humanity what we CAN do,

what the little-guy can do,

OUTSIDE, of fear-based portrayals of the 'futility of trying to escape justice' developed in times without anything coming even close, to modern forensics, or anything like hackers,

the medieval / whenever equivalent is perhaps a spy, or infiltrator,

and UNlike what convoluted 'power-play' up to their eyeballs in it hypocrytical gangster characters that have diversified all over the world in film, from ethinically and culturally predjudist sterotypes of italians, etc, in the 1920s? - 1940s? ... cannot be honestly said to be what is AIMED FOR with confessional-systems,..

were one to, the whole mountain of counter-arguments and anti-fascist-catholic efforts put in over the centuries looms-close as soon as one errs in their rediculous boasting and over-estiamtions of it's reliability,..

things like hacking, is now creating a DIS-advantageous environment,.. AGAINST, the uber-criminal masterminds of times gone by in especially fantasy, where then of the past, FEAR , is now not-enough, and there are far more ppl willing to let the blade fall, and gamble on innocents then taken-along with a purge when framed by fraud, or false-evidence, etc,

compared to the then not-willing-to-sacrifice-the-few-for-the-sake-of-the-purge-greater-good , not-facing the consequences hacker, who can do it REMOTELY.

It has become a REALITY, for organised crime, that they now cannot rely on ppl involved, being anywhere NEAR, any suffering they can create.

Ironically, then,

much wisdom about suffering,

both coming from genuinly hopeful leaders, AND fear-reliant criminals, white-collar included,

are BOTH, being denied their continued environment of reliability of stifling conversation & debate, if not also social-opposition/reaction ... as well as being forced to have to address perhaps the religious equivalent of omniprescence in it's primitive days of mobile phone captures.

By the time integrated cynerbetics is commonplace,

they will be further pressured,

and if i'm any good at guess at it, will probably keep trying to rely on countries local-laws self-determinism laws, to get around their responsibility of EXPORTS,.. what they create and sell, to tourists, etc.

How humans SOCIALLY react to that, legally or otherwise,

will not become some kind of proof of mutual-respect, make no mistake.

It is temporary, in MIS-used systems.

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A bit like that,

i couldn't help but feel that this film, mmm,

kept-it-simple, i suppose,

but maybe for it's scope, that was fine - the plot ( based off a true story? ) WAS limited in context, so i guess that's ok,

taking on too much and having political actors turning it into some other kind of film would've ruined it.

:)

mmmm ... something ... im not sure what i'm noticing,..

perhaps some kind of creeping into Buddist regional film, catholic confessional FALSE PROMISES,

in some form.

BE WARNED, take it from this barbarian,

thier false-promises of reliability, have ALRAEDY been exposed for all to see,

in their hypocrisies and absurd fantasies, while those ACTUALLY committed to justice whether judicial or not,

go their own ways in being a part of those who spill blood. So be it. The cowardice of those that lie about what being nothing-but-peaceful all the time, creates, turn a blind eye, to when the abscence of martial or protectorative PRESCENCE in society, capacity,.. leaves it vulnerable to most if not all threats that will use violence.

That catch-22 of acceptance of the need for societal authority , that is a diffcult pill to swallow for many, is something that also, in time, should dwindle, when investigating white-collar crime will also become more facilitated ( at least socially) , and systems THAT VALUE SOCIAL VALUE,

will retain the wisdom in their choosing, over LIMITED social-planning absurdities under-religion, with it's own editing and filtering of the consequences of what it creates ( with some exceptions for usualy simple-religions or spiritualisms that do not involve themselves in social-control or social-predicates )

--------

Something like that :D

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While some watching this movie will think of themselves as blessed 'by-their-shepard',

i think of myself as blessed by cynicism, by doubt, by caution, by truth,

not by ideals that will never eventuate, and have always BEEN lies,

mostly to keep children more easily able to sleep at night.

If you prefer for your children to BE ALERT,

then do not protect them to the point that they become hopelessly vulnerable,

then trapping yourselves into MAINTAINING the falsities that have either kept them hidden from seeing the world, or from seeing their own future, based off how they're thinking they can interact with it.

I don't mind saying at all, i didn't spare a thought for the son killed in this movie, nor felt much for the parents at the Stupa near the end,

he and his kind are a symptom ... a TEMPORARY symptom, and are being societally undermined as we live and breathe right now in 2022 ... and have been for decades - both genetic research and social research continues UNIMPEDED, by hopefuls and dreamers wanting to travel back in time for their dissapointment,.. and contrary to what some will tell you , we ALREADY 'COMMIT' ( choose ) to test babies for serious abnormalities, so we can minimise suffering and otherwise further budening on society by letting supposedly-ONLY, nature, when it is not ONLY nature anymore, create what 'it' will, create.

Agent Orange,.. was not nature.

Nuclear power, and bombs' testing (mostly), in both the USSR and the USA, and everywhere else ... posioning the locals, was never "nature"

in the same way, that we still seem to've forgotten to truly tell the difference between integral animals, and hypocrytical humans, that say that animals are worse then-they.

----------

PRETENDING TO ONLY SEE,

things from past-times where observations that might've USED TO'VE BEEN valid,

in the 21st century, is a hopeless joke.

In reality, only the deluded are pretending old values will be all will need.

If that kind of thing was supposedly reliable,

ooooh soo generous donators that kept their billions in hidden bank accounts in the Caymans ... would've been protected by your god,

but they weren't.

The hackers weren't struck down by lightning,

your-god ... was so easily defeated ... by fat guys wearing My little Pony T-shirts ... eating cheesy-poofs ... and drinking coke.

What a joke. Where is your god?

---------

Some of that has a closeness to European religious exports, rather than Buddhist, sorry,

but the point is ... similar to WHEN ... are evil-doers supposed to be suffering, when various buddas are supposed to be manifesting punishment?

Pffff... punishment needs to happen NOW.

The punishment and prevention, facilitated by the murder of the boy in this film,

should not have to be DONE BY THE FAMILY.

I.e. WHO does it, who gets the credo, who gets the kudos, who gets the honor.

Or, ideally

your society prevents them from re-emerging ... the cliques are DENIED their privacy,

the private-societies have their doors kicked in, and all the hypocrytes hung up to dry like Musolini or whoever else.

A bit part of how the failures of ordinary man,

add up ... build up ...

is a part of WHEN types of politics emerge, that take a at least partially reasonable cynical-approach towards the public, or BOTH private societies AND the public, when both are guilty of different failures at different times.

INDIVIDUALIST failures, like in the boy in this film,

are waaayyyyyy outside what is usually of only minor failures of common folk, compared to WHEN police USUALLY take something more seriosuly than littering or shouting in traffic.

This film, mmm,

does contextualise a abborent TIME, when they might act more than usual,

compared to their normal prioritisations, to ignore most things common folk do, comapred to organised crime.

A better wider-scope film to watch AFTER this one,

is one where policing/authority is cracking down on white-colar crime, and insufficient ... who's-policing-the-police ... or 'mutual powers of investigation' , as has been coined.

I don't usually defend ANYthing from the USA,

but 'mutual powers of investigation', seem likely to stay as a concept, even if the USA's gone backward in USING them.
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10/10
Law only protect the power and riches?
xiaohei-8011226 January 2020
This movie is great, intense, touching and entertaining at the same time. Everyone give their best performance. Script is well written that I do a research it's orgin from India.Director manage so well to put many broken piece storyline into one. The little girl is so cute and funny at the same time.
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10/10
Great acting
phebychow13 August 2022
The more empathy you feel for the strong dad, the more hatred you feel about the monster mon! Both characters are set up as cat and mouse but their acting are unbelievable brilliant. Compared to the original, the content has more layers as well as full of metaphors and twists.
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5/10
Sorry didn't liked the CLIMAX at all....I like the original better
akshay-shankar89119 March 2020
Overall film taking is too good but unfortunately the CLIMAX made me dislike the movie... Original movie climax was the best...it made sense when he did everything for his family...but this movie climax was not at all good
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8/10
well
d-8850422 May 2020
The movie is very tight and does not drag at all. Actors of all sizes are acting crazily all over the stage.
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9/10
WUSHGA
e-0723222 March 2020
There is always less than the sun shine on the shade of the wet corner -- there is the "tree of power" cover, black and white confusion, good and evil wrong, but thankfully, there is still vitality tenacious weeds up growth! "Some children are children, some children are beasts", the most profound words in the film, the most cruel to the children is to spoil and laugh, when the child in your education into the devil, the parents should take full responsibility!
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8/10
Cowardly people, rebellious sheeps.
o-7200917 January 2020
Stories and metaphors that can be applied to every social environment, but this one is in a Chinese society. Those sheep, when they are not in danger, can let you cut their wool gently. When threatened, they resist. It's still a good type of movie. PS: the beginning may be the end, which makes me feel deeply afraid.
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5/10
It's not a "remake"
chisarimo10 September 2021
The best part that I liked about the original film was how a moviebuff designed a PERFECT crime. So the climax of this chinese film only made me desappointed.
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8/10
With justice and awe, you always have
zeekwunlau16 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Like it first. As a creator who advocates strong plots, this movie is also very suitable to my taste. To be more straightforward, I think this is a rare strong plot movie. Three points. The first is that the acting skills of the actor burst, including that cute little girl, and the crying scene is highly infectious. What's more, Xiao Yang's interpretation was beyond my expectation. Let's put it this way, I won't believe it when he says he can't drink later. There are many psychological confrontations in this play, and the successful performance of psychological confrontations must be based on acting skills. They did it. Second, the criminal investigation logic is sound. The word "criminal logic" is a reminder to me when I am creating. It is also a point I often use when watching a criminal investigation drama. How to make film and television works more real, especially such stories that take place in foreign countries, the logic of criminal investigation is very important. In this movie, I didn't pick out any flaws. Third, the montage design is natural. We know that it's still very difficult to design the montage unintentionally, anyway, I haven't dared to write anyway. But the main component of this movie is the montage, and the traces of intentional look are not heavy.
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9/10
Twisty
westsideschl26 April 2022
Thai IT specialist Li Weijie (Yang Xiao) has to devise a scheme to save his family from ruthless police & politicians. A Chinese remake of the original Indian-Malay movie version. An original script & well received crime drama; well acted. Nice twists.
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