Crews of Only The River Flows 2023:
Only The River Flows(2023) is a Chinese psychological thriller film directed by Wei Sujun starring Zhu Yilong in the leading role.
Table of Contents
- Crews of Only The River Flows 2023:
- ‘Only The River Flows 2023’ Story Reveal:
- The picture is yet to end!
- EXPLANATION:
- Similar Movies: Depravity(2024) Splendid Americano Thriller
‘Only The River Flows 2023’ Story Reveal:
An old woman is found dead near a river. A little boy witnesses the crime. He confesses that he told his dad after the criminal confrontation but he didn’t believe it. Then he called some other kids to come and look. They finally believed him. The father says when he found it, the TV news just started, so it must have been around 7:00 p.m.
The police search the river nearby but don’t find any weapon. They have about fifty households in this village. They rarely see any strangers. The granny four just raised geese, and had no issues with anyone. When captain Ma asks about Madman, the neighbour can’t say his name or where he came from.
Madman showed up here years ago. He comes and goes. Granny’s husband died a few years ago. After he died, she adopted the madman. Took him home from the street. We took care of her. She often went out for walks, in and out of the village. According to the neighbour the madman is harmless. If kids threw stones at him, he would just smile back.
Policemen start investigating the case. The murderer must be pretty strong. The fingerprints we have taken from the scene, all seem to belong to the same person. The items in the handbag are all quite ordinary. No other clues. A cassette is looking at them frustratedly in the bag.
‘The flower’s heart hidden in its stamen…has missed its flowering season…your heart has forgotten what season it is…who can understand it…
A man brings a message that they have found the madman. Cap. Ma orders Xie not to leave until he finishes the whole tape. Madman is sitting near the river playing with his coat, floating it on the water. Watching him, Cap. Ma does the same thing so that he can grab his attention. But he is absorbed in his silliness, he doesn’t even look at him. Cap. Ma beckons other officers to bring food for the madman. They run off the spot right away.
A good thing is that the madman isn’t trying to escape so Ma leaves him there and tells others to keep an eye on him. Returning to Xie, Cap. asks him if he has listened to the whole tape. Xie suggests they should listen to it together.
‘I snuck into your office today. Of course, I’d never disturb you. But I just want to linger(Stay in a place longer than necessary) wherever you are…haven’t seen you for three days…miss you so much.’
Officer Ting marks out the residential areas in the country on both sides of the rail line. Captain Ma is going home listening to the tape. On the way home a person crosses his path briskly, he checks out but can’t hold off anyone. Next day they check out the residential areas and find the owner of the voice. She is an accountant, name is Qian Ling. She is attending poetry class. The policemen take her from there.
Qian Ling informs she went near the river for personal reasons. She is reluctant to unwind the matter. Then a man named Wang Hong comes. Comrade officer, let me tell you. We were supposed to meet by the river that day. But I arrived late. I couldn’t find her, so I left. The next day, she said that something happened by the river. She was frightened and forgot her bag. The policeman shows him the deceased woman’s photo. He can’t recognise her.
Wang Hong has come because he knew that they would eventually find him. But his family must not find out about his relationship with Ling. He wants help to keep this secret. But Hong tells them he saw a woman with wavy hair and a factory uniform. Victim’s time of death is between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. Police find Xu Liang’s hairdressing shop near the factory.
Xu is expecting the police. Captain Ma gets a little surprised to hear that. As soon as he arrived by the river that day, he saw the corpse. At that moment, he knew he would be caught up in this case. It doesn’t matter whether a person kills or not. If the person is present at the crime spot, the police will reach to him to investigate.
He went fishing on December 15. The police ask about noticing a woman there who was with wavy hair wearing the factory’s uniform. The hairdresser had a previous conviction. Someone denounced him. He was sentenced to eight years and was released after seven years but he can’t be the suspect of this case as the police finds out an alibi(a cliam that one was elsewhere when a crime is alleged to have taken place) for him investigating.
Hong saw a wavy-haired woman. Girls are doing wavy hair often, so this clue isn’t helping them to find the wanted criminal. Ma search jis grade three medal certificate that he got in Yunnan but doesn’t find anywhere. In the next scene we see Wang Hong standing near the river waiting for Qian Ling to deliver a letter to her. The letter conveys ‘break up’ words. Suddenly he stops smoking, making an inquisitive face looking at the front.
Afterwards, we see police on the spot sitting near Hong’s dead body. Qian Ling was supposed to meet him there but she ended up not going out as her mom didn’t let her. The police made so much effort to look for Hong, it turned out he isn’t the suspect. And a few days later, he is dead. He is killed the same way as Granny Four.
Captain Ma says this wavy haired woman is the focus of their investigation next. They are discussing meanwhile a man with blood all over the body holding a bat passes them. They chase after him and finds him easily. Everyone comes to a conclusion that he is the killer and sends him to a mental hospital. The boss asks Captain Ma why he hasn’t wrap up(close) the case yet. He replies he still has something to be sorted out.
Ma takes his pregnant wife for a regular check up. The doctor shows the baby’s movement through the ultrasonogram. Baby seems okay but the NT(Nuchal Translucency, the amount of fluid under the skin at the back of the neck of an unborn baby). That’s why doctors do an early study of a baby’s health condition. We will talk about it later. Let’s get back to the investigation. Cap. Ma knocks at the hairdresser Xu Liang’s door hoping to get answers.
He asks if he ever had any client from the factory who was tall and had long wavy hair. Xu replies negatively but keeps asking unnecessary questions to Ma. Later Ma leaves, being sick of him. The next day Xu Liang commits suicide consuming a lot of sleeping pills. Ma comes to the hospital to inspect him. Doctor has pumped out the stomach. Now they need dialysis to eliminate the drug and it requires a transfer to the county hospital.
Captain Ma signs the paper on behalf of his family. After he arranges a search in Xu’s house, they find makeup accessories, a wavy hair wig!! It concludes that he roamed around the river that day, wearing a wavy haired wig. Xu Liang is the ‘wavy haired’ woman. He used to wear that wig to pretend a woman. That day Hong saw him actually. Finally he wraps up the case.
The picture is yet to end!
At night Ma asks his colleague if he remembers when he received a grade three merit award back in Yunnan. He replies he doesn’t remember something like that. Next day the test report of the upcoming baby shows up.
Captain Ma gets her wife to the hospital to find out the condition of the child. The study says the baby has a genetic defect. Their child’s cognitive behaviour may suffer. Cognitive Impairment(A person who struggles with mental functions like thinking, learning, remembering, and making decisions is said to have cognitive impairment.) Ma suggests getting an abortion but the baby has a heartbeat already. Tina says they can try in future but that will never be this one. This line hits me hard when I am watching the movie.
Meanwhile Xie makes horns from the road of his house as the witness child is found killed near the river. That means another murder has occurred. A witness testifies that he saw the madman walking behind the boy who is killed now. The madman hit his face with a rock. While Ma Zhe is talking with the witness, Xie stops before them saying the madman did escape from the hospital. The police make searches discreetly everywhere. In one evening, Cap. Ma gets inside the madman’s house. He finds some signs in the ceiling which indicate a madman used to hit granny. The signs remain on the ceiling.
The police chief scolds the policemen for not being capable of catching the murderer. He gives them one week otherwise they are done. In the meantime, Cap. Ma Zhe has a tough conversation with his wife about keeping the baby. His wife is angry with him as he is being so harsh towards his own child that he doesn’t want to keep a defective child.
It seems he doesn’t even care about his wife’s feelings. But she is the baby’s mother, keeping the child inside him, feeling his heartbeats, she can’t but consider his feelings. This is not an accident, it’s God’s will. Nevertheless the doctor said there was only a ten percent chance of it happening, so he shouldn’t be pessimistic.
Next day Xu Liang appears at the police station to thank Ma in person. He gives him a gift which says ‘To save a life is to renew a life’. He apologises to him for not being clear from the start. When he leaves Ma comes down to head for his home but the moment stuns him as Xu Liang falls on his car jumping from up!! After the incident, Ma starts hallucinating every killed person in the case.
He hallucinates that Madman is killing everyone mercilessly; Granny, the little boy, Wang Hong. Lastly he watches everyone laughing at him, standing in front of him. He thinks he might go crazy if he keeps thinking about this case so he decides to resign. The chief rejects his resignation as the murderer is still out there.
The higher order is calling him everyday whether the murderer gets caught or not. Ma says his wife is pregnant so he needs to be with her. Chief congratulates him but still rejects the letter. He can’t back off from hardships like a coward. Ma Zhe sits on his office chair and keeps thinking what he should do now. He calls on Xie to hand over the case for a few days. Until he comes back, Xie will be in charge of this case. He becomes so happy to be in charge.
Returning home, Ma takes care of his wife. He spends time with her, cooks food for her, waters the plant, and above all he becomes a homely person. They decide to make a photo shoot before the arrival of the baby. When he waits until the photos are prepared, the photographer is searching for pictures from a pile of pictures. Suddenly he noticed something inside them, it is the madman’s face among a family photo. Later Ma Zhe hears Madman laughing behind him. He fights shy of him leaving the place but the madman follows him. Ma gets angrily furious and it leads him to shoot him.
Captain Ma informs his boss what he just has done to the madman. He shot him four times. Boss reacts suspiciously as no one has noticed the incident. Ma Zhe wants his boss to kill him then everything will be settled. Boss understands Ma isn’t in his senses now. He asks him to tell how many bullets a Type 64 gun holds. He answers seven. That means his gun must have three bullets now but surprisingly the gun has all the seven bullets. Ma Zhe understands he is hallucinating again.
Lastly we see Ma Zhe receiving the Grade Three Merit Award for contributing to the case of December 15. He tracked down madman with unbeatable determination. Madman is now under active treatment in a municipal mental hospital.
EXPLANATION:
Captain Ma is also suffering from Cognitive behaviour disorder. Remember he said that he received a grade three merit award back in Yunnan but couldn’t find the award. Actually that wasn’t true but he wasn’t lying. He was hallucinating about that. He forgot who got it and imagined him as a merit awarded.
His child got the same disease from him. This movie portrayed how a mentally unstable police officer becomes able to catch a mental psycho murderer who is totally unaware of his sickness. He even hates mental people but guess what, his own child is now suffering it!!
Most beautiful explanation I’ve ever read about the movie!
Most amazing explanation I’ve ever read about the movie!