Hong Kong is plagued by a series of terrible murders, of former suspects in cold cases who’ve evaded capture for years, by a vigilante gang calling themselves the Chosen Sleuths.

In order to tell a whole entire story that includes new generations of detectives and villains, the film starts off with a series of murders committed years before most of the (new) Chosen Sleuths were even teenagers, some even not born yet, just bear this in mind. It becomes relevant later, but for now lets keep this information in brain, and introduce the most relevant character of the film too, Jun Lee (Sean Lau). Detective Lee was known for his almost divine inspiration, his bull-headed insistence of always being right, and as such gained a reputation as the Chosen Sleuth of his police station. Sadly after being set up and framed up and not dealing with the fallout of a very-bad guy getting one over on Lee and his fellow cops more than once, Lee’s mental instability boils over and he finds himself tossed from the force, to live on the streets he used to patrol.

Cut to present day, the Chosen Sleuths gang have quite literally immolated their targets and left clues as to their motivations and their next planned victims. The Hong Kong police force have formed their own squad to deal directly with the Chosen Sleuths, but they’re not getting very far without the original Chosen Sleuth, who is, of course, already investigating the executions himself.

And this is where ‘Detectives vs. Sleuths’ really shines – Detective Lee may live on the streets in a dirty yellow raincoat in a beleaguered sort of existence, but he is still somehow the original Chosen Sleuth. Lee’s chance at redemption begins when a former victim shows up to lead Lee to his rain-damaged body, and while no one else can see the ghost, Lee gives it all kind of credence and follows the clues, like a good cop should. In fact, the question of whether or not Lee is actually seeing multiple for-real ghosts or visions his mental illness has drummed up, was never actually answered inside the movie, and I for one was glad of it. However the hell he did it, Lee the former Chosen Sleuth is now hot on a reopened case, the one that effectively ruined him, more then a decade later!

Honestly, saying anything else would give far too much of the plot away and Moxie already left some juicy clues in the bare-bones review setup. The multi-generational murder mystery ‘Detectives vs. Sleuths’ is worth multiple viewings, to see what clues you may have missed last time!