Teenagers Investigate a Classmate's Death in Chang Jung-chi's Latest Film

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"As long as everyone believes it, it'll become the truth," says Li Huai, the leader of the murder-solving trio. Partners in Crime revolves around the idea that truth is not simply based on fact, but belief. The film features three students who discover a female classmate's corpse in an alley who take it upon themselves to solve the mystery behind her death. The trio includes bullied loner Li Huai (Wu Chien-ho), class intellect Yong Chuan (Deng Yu-kai) and tough jock Yi Kai (Cheng Kai-yuan).

United by the discovery of the dead body, the three students become unlikely friends. The way the boys quickly decide to band together to investigate Wei Chao's death seemed unnatural, when they knew absolutely nothing about each other or the girl herself. Even the way Li Huai subtly becomes the leader of the group seemed strange; as the supposed brains and brawn of the trio, everyone else completely believed and agreed with everything he said. Nobody ever questions Li Huai's suspicious ability to reveal hidden clue after clue. Moreover, the conclusions they make with these clues are logically flawed, based largely on assumptions, which evidently makes these boys terrible detectives. All in all, the mystery portion of the film disappoints, but the film pleasantly surprises with an angsty twist.

What begins as a film unraveling a mystery turns into something much darker, rife with teenage revenge, conspiracy and guilt. The gossip mill that is high school which once engulfed Wei Chao moves onto its next prey, the leads. This delightful turn brings everything back to the film's theme as widely-believed misunderstandings cause things to spin out of control; somehow the determination to solve and bring justice to another's death complicates their own lives.

Unfortunately, the film's big reveal was heavily dulled by the anticlimactic ending. Many introduced factors which fuel the movie toward the end are cast aside and many critical questions are left unanswered, making the film feel somewhat incomplete. Partners in Crime has a storyline with great potential, but its rough execution and empty ending seeps out the thrill it provides.

Partners in Crime played at the 2014 San Diego Asian Film Festival.