Erzi yingxiong is a messy, strange family revenge movie

If you're looking for a smooth, polished movie where everyone acts like a normal human being, stay away from Erzi yingxiong. You should watch this if you have a soft spot for old-school dramas where the children are ten times smarter than the adults. Most people will probably find the constant screaming a bit much, though.

The movie starts with this guy, a "funnyman" played by Jingling Hong. I put that in quotes because he spent the first twenty minutes just looking incredibly stressed out and sweaty. It is hard to tell if he is supposed to be a bad comedian on purpose or if the movie just thinks he's hilarious.

His wife is having an affair with her cousin, which is already a lot to take in before the first act is even over. The cousin is played by Zhigang He, and he has this sneer that makes you want to throw a shoe at the screen. He spends most of his time looking like he just smelled something bad in every scene.

There is this one scene in a kitchen where they are arguing about money, and the camera just... stays there. For way too long. You can see a fly buzzing around in the background and I found myself watching the fly more than the actors. It felt more real than the dialogue did.

Then we get to the burglary part. The cousin frames our hero for a break-in, and it’s the most obvious setup in the history of cinema. Like, the police just show up and go "Yep, must be him" without looking at anything else. It reminded me of the simple logic you see in something like Simple Sis, where things just happen because the script says so.

But then the son shows up. This kid is supposed to be "moralistic" and "smart," but mostly he just looks tired of his parents. I don't blame him. He starts putting together this plan to save his dad that involves more logic than the entire police force has.

The Kid is the Only Reason to Stay

Seriously, the child actor (Wei-Lien Kao) is doing some heavy lifting here. While the adults are overacting and waving their arms around, he just sits there with this blank stare that feels very relatable. He’s like a tiny detective in a world of clowns.

I liked the way he talked to the adults. He doesn't sound like a kid; he sounds like a tired accountant who is auditing a failing business. It's a bit like the precocious energy in The Book Worm, but with more family trauma involved.

There is a specific moment where the son is looking at a piece of evidence—I think it was a dropped glove or something—and the music gets all intense. It’s a bit much. The synth track sounds like it was recorded in a garage, and it’s about 30% louder than the actual talking.

The pacing is all over the place. One minute we are in a slow, sad scene about betrayal, and the next it feels like a slapstick comedy. It’s hard to know how to feel. Is it a tragedy? A joke? A legal thriller? It tries to be all of them and ends up being none of them, really.

"I just want to go home," the dad says at one point. Honestly, same, buddy.

I noticed that the lighting in the courtroom scenes is really weird. Half the judge's face is in total darkness. Maybe it was a metaphor for justice being blind, but it mostly just looked like they ran out of lightbulbs that day.

The cousin’s plan to frame him is so full of holes. He basically just leaves a trail of breadcrumbs. If the son wasn't there, the dad would probably just accept his fate and go to jail because he's too busy being sad about his wife.

Speaking of the wife, Jingzhen Xu plays her with zero likable qualities. Usually, you want a villain to have a little depth, but she is just mean. Every time she’s on screen, she’s either yelling or whispering something evil to the cousin. It’s a bit one-note.

• The dad's stage makeup is terrifying.
• The cousin wears a suit that looks two sizes too big.
• The kid's handwriting in the "plan" scene is way too neat for a child.
• There is a dog in one scene that looks very confused to be there.

It’s not an epic like The Eagle, and it doesn't have the grit you might expect from a crime story. It feels very small and contained, like a play that someone decided to film in their cousin's house (pun intended). The sets look very lived-in, though, which I actually liked. The kitchen had actual stains on the walls.

The ending comes fast. The son does his big reveal, the bad guys get caught, and everything is supposed to be fine. But you’re left thinking... his mom is still a terrible person and his dad is still a bad comedian. It’s a strange kind of happy ending.

Is it a good movie? Not really. Is it an interesting movie? Yeah, kind of. It has that raw, slightly amateur feel that makes you feel like you've discovered something nobody else has watched in thirty years. Sometimes that’s enough.

I would say give it a watch if you’re bored and want to see a kid outsmart a bunch of idiots. Just don't expect it to make much sense. The grammary in the subtitles I saw was also pretty bad, which added to the charm in a weird way. Classic low-budget energy.

One last thing: the sound of the rain in the final act is definitely just someone holding a hose near a microphone. You can hear the water hitting the pavement in a very rhythmic, mechanical way. It made me laugh during what was supposed to be a very sad moment. Good times.