Evidently,
the Chinese legal system is not overly concerned with potential conflicts of
interest. For instance, nobody objects to a hotshot state’s attorney prosecuting
the daughter of his longtime nemesis, even though she is also the beloved pupil
of his art teacher wife. His integrity may very well be above reproach, but the
defense attorney will possibly cut a few ethical corners that would be spoilery
to address in detail. However, it is safe to say the media-frenzy trial is
never headed exactly where the opposing counsels assume in Fei Xing’s Silent Witness (trailer here), which screens
during the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival.
About
the only cases Tong Tao has lost were his white collar prosecutions of slippery
financier Lin Tai. Despite his history with her father, Lin Mengmeng still
knows him as “Uncle,” but the evidence she murdered her father’s pop idol fiancée
is so overwhelming, he must prosecute her anyway. Indeed, it is all so open-and-shut
her defense attorney Zhou Li passively sits on her hands, apparently resigned
to defeat, until she suddenly obliterates a key prosecution witness. It seems
to be more of a game-ender than a game-changer, but there are several more
stunning revelations coming down the pike.
Given
the title, one might assume somebody out there saw something important.
However, Silent Witness is rather
more complicated than that. It is a direct descendant of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution, but it
clearly depends on the “flexibility” of the Chinese legal system to revise
charges on the fly. A case like this would have probably taken decades to
unfold in American courts, but it feels like Fei’s characters wrap it up in
about a week.
Regardless,
the series of shoes he drops are invariably clever. Yet, there is real drama at
the heart of the picture. Considering his work in Silent Witness, viewers are strongly advised not to play poker with
Sun Honglei. Even though we can tell his Lin Tai is nursing a secret, he still
successfully pulls the rug completely out from under the audiences feet. It is
a wickedly subtle slow build that completely upends viewers’ responses.
Yu
Nan and HK superstar Aaron Kwok nicely anchor the film as the legal eagles
navigating the schemes within schemes. Deng Jiajia is also quite compelling as
the emotionally stunted Mengmeng. In a smaller but critical role, Zhao Lixin perfectly
sells the first reversal as the unreliable witness, Sun Wei. In fact, Silent Witness boasts an unusually deep
bench of intriguing supporting players, such as NYAFF special guest Zishuo Ding,
who brings verve and energy to the film as Zhou’s associate, Meizi.
