Movie Review: Curiosity Killed the Cat (好奇害死猫)

The basic premise of this film is the love triangle -- married couple and a lover -- that leads to murder. You don't know who does it, and many of the pieces of the puzzle are only filled in via flashback from the point of view of other characters. Of course, if you've seen one of these films you've seen them all -- you know there's going to be a twist in there some where, and the person that you least suspected is going to end up being the bad guy. The problem with Curiosity is that it doesn't try to be anything more than your average, paint-by-the-numbers thriller.

This type of structure, where events are repeated from the viewpoints of different characters, each filling in a gap in the audience's picture of what happene, isn't anything new, but still, how clever it ends up being is all in the execution. The first time through, Curiosity ends up being more confusing than mysterious; even if you only see the story from one side, that part of the story should be told seamlessly. Instead, we get some choppy editing which makes it seem as the story was told simply by subtracting the scenes they didn't want you to see until later.

If you've seen the commercials and previews, let us inform you that you're being led on: that's not blood, it's red paint -- we're not joking.

Finally, we ought to add that none of the characters are particularly interesting or believable.

Image from sina.com.