Just finished watching 神探 (Mad Detective) on TV. Somehow a disturbing feeling lingers on. From a psychospiritual perspective the movie is unsettled..
Not that I do not like the movie. The movie is quite innovative in a sense, visually depicting the inner selves with physical actors. Quite vivid. For my Innerwork and Brugh friends, we can definitely appreciate how this is presented - what we called Shadows. Yet the disturbing fact is the movie 神探 did not show the redeeming factor as the other movie 大隻佬 (Running On Karma) did.
Personally I prefer the latter. To me the first one is the simplified and incomplete version of the latter. It is only showing the first phase of our life journey - our path - being able to recognize the different parts in ourselves. These parts are not integrated, which is the true resolution.
劉德華 (Andy Lau) is like 劉青雲 (Sean Andy??!!). They both possess the gift of being able to perceive the Karma/Shadow in another person. Andy became angry himself, seeing all the violence "past" of the people that surround him. Sean Andy became arrogant, seeing all the greed around him. They both used their gift, their shadows to do good, hoping that they can change the world. Yet both of them failed to see past themselves.
In 大隻佬, the failure for Andy to see past himself is shown as the inflated size Andy as 大隻佬. Only when Andy is able to confront his own internal violent self, then come face to face with it, then accept him finally as part of himself (through LOVE and COMPASSION), was he able to set himself free, and became skinny again - his original and natural self that integrates both sides of him. Not two but one. And which is when he is able to pick up and wear his cassock (袈裟) again - he has just made a giant leap in his spiritual journey - and move on.
In 神探, all this time Sean Andy is in his shadow of being the God-detective, so arrogant, so inhuman. Only in two moments can we catch a glimpse of his human self. The first one is the ear-cutting scene and the second is the scene towards the end when he finally admits that he too is human. And that's the point where he sacrificed his live. Integration is not shown here, or rather, a more Zen way of saying it, that's resolved through death.
That is the disturbing part for me about 神探. There is still hope as shown in 大隻佬 and not necessarily the ending in 神探 if we do our work...
A side note to point out too is that in both movies, the two main characters are being led by their feminine (the anima) to their respective destiny.
BTW, Shadow and Karma are the same thing. Give it a thought and you have the gift. hehehehe....
