By Acclaimed Hong Kong star Louis Koo has had a long and prosperous career. Beginning in 1994, he’s consistently been featured in some of the biggest Hong Kong films over the last 30 years, including multiple projects with Johnnie To, a couple with Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen, and new box-office king Soi Cheang. Not every film is a must-see or even a classic, but you can rarely miss when checking out a Koo movie.
The same goes for his latest starring role, the mysteriously titled Behind the Shadows. Made as one of the first Malaysian productions for Koo’s production company, One Cool Group Limited, Behind the Shadows doesn’t reinvent the mold of classic detective stories, but presents things with an old-school Hong Kong flair that feels like a throwback to the early 00s. Despite Koo’s face showing the passage of time, I bet you could fool some people by telling them this was shot 20 years ago.
Even without the type of old-school mentality, Behind the Shadows’ pondering on moral obligation, relationship dynamics, and ethics makes for a compelling watch in its own right.
Behind the Shadows
Directors: Johnathan Li, Chou Man-yu
Release Date: June 12, 2025 (Hong Kong), July 15, 2025 (NYAFF)
Country: Hong Kong
There are a couple of brief summaries for Behind the Shadows online, but most of them spoil a pretty big twist the film has at the midpoint. To save you from that revelation, I’ll go with the most basic explanation. Behind the Shadows sees Louis Koo star as Auyeung Wai-yip, a private detective who focuses on missing persons and adultery cases. After having moved to Malaysia to be with his wife, Kwan Wing-sum (Chrissie Chau), Auyeung has thrown himself headfirst into his work, and it has put tremendous strain on his marriage. While this is happening, Auyeung receives a case from a concerned man asking for the whereabouts of his fiancée, Carmen Ong (Yumi Wong). He suspects she has been cheating on him, so Auyeung agrees to look into things.
Concurrently, another man comes in with a similar case, only this time it concerns Auyeung’s wife. Apparently, she has been cheating on this mysterious man, and while Auyeung doesn’t reveal that he is actually her husband, he can’t help but take the case to get to the bottom of things. It sets off a series of events that culminate in some wild finale that only Hong Kong could produce, though I won’t detail exactly how the plot progresses to that point.
The key theme I took away from Behind the Shadows was the desire to be heard. Running alongside all of these adultery and missing persons cases is a series of unresolved murders. This does ultimately link together, even if the narrative structure is messy, but as Auyeung goes about investigating different cases, he often chats about how he just wishes his wife would listen to him. The women being murdered, in fact, were all committing adultery, and the key similarity between each case is that their husbands never listened to them. Behind the Shadows shows that even in this modern age of digital gadgetry and high-tech nonsense, human connection is still as important as ever.
© One Cool Group
As a B-plot to the main story, Auyeung is tasked with looking into infidelity suspected by a gangster named Maraca (who we never see in person). One of his girls, Betty (Renci Yeung), is possibly cheating on him, and he has sent his right-hand man, Chicken Legs (Raymond Wong), to convince Auyeung to look into it. It’s pretty obvious from the off, but Chicken Legs isn’t quite telling the truth, and over the course of the film, he kind of acts as the flipside to the coin that Auyeung is. When we see Auyeung repeatedly screwing things up with his wife, Chicken Legs acts as what Auyeung should be doing to secure his love.
Where a lot of the narrative depth comes in is with Betty, surprisingly enough. While she starts off as something of a ditzy pretty girl, Betty eventually ties into that central theme I spoke about. Throughout her life under Maraca’s “care,” Betty was never taken seriously. She just wanted someone to listen to her and assure her that she was human, but Maraca was too busy courting other women. That led to her doing the same with men behind his back, engaging in a relationship with Chicken Legs, and having men answer her every beck and call. She initially threatens Auyeung when he tries to help her, but she comes to realize that he, too, just wants to be understood.
That plays into the investigation into Auyeung’s wife, which obviously crosses an ethical boundary. In the early parts of his investigation into Betty, Auyeung meets up with his old friend, Chun (Eddie Cheung). Both have been hired to look into her, and while they joke that Maraca doesn’t trust anyone, Auyeung starts to open up about some of his problems. He asks Chun what he would do if someone came to him with evidence that his wife was cheating. Chun responds by saying, “I would reject the case.” He explains that regardless of the answer, looking into things means you don’t trust her, and if you don’t trust her, the relationship is doomed to fail, anyway. The answer is irrelevant in his mind.
© One Cool Group
Stuff like that is what stuck out to me the most, here. Behind the Shadows is otherwise a pretty conventional detective thriller. It doesn’t have a film noir vibe or anything, but it looks like a number of Benny Chan films from his later career. An interrogation scene during the mid-point is so reminiscent of Raging Fire that I practically thought I was watching the same movie. That film wasn’t very successful at building a strong narrative, but Behind the Shadows certainly has more going on under the hood than you’d think.
In old-school Hong Kong fashion, as well, the first half of the film is focused on building out Auyeung’s character before introducing a proper antagonist. I think explaining that reveals a bit too much, but I do find it interesting that a Hong Kong film in 2025 has a police officer as a villain. It’s not that I think cops are righteous, but with the Chinese government seizing more control of various aspects of Hong Kong culture, I would have figured that kind of plotline would be cut. It also helps that Liu Kuan-ting as Officer Chen is pretty dastardly, once all the cards are on the table. He does have something of a tragic backstory, reminding me of how Baby Assassins: Nice Days fleshed out its own villain, but then he’s also a bastard.
In general, the acting is fairly competent here. I like the report that Koo and Wong have, with the two joking with each other about how they look or act. Chrissie Chau gets some good dramatic bits where she has to confront the reality of her collapsing marriage, and Renci Yeung is certainly on the up in the Hong Kong film industry. I wouldn’t say anything is a star-making turn, but it’s convincing and helps give the film an air of believability.
© One Cool Group
My only real complaints are that the pacing can be languid at times, and I think a bit too much is going on with regards to narrative framing. As you can see in my summary, Auyeung is juggling something like six cases at once and while some are meant to be throwaway gags to show that even he can’t remember everything (or isn’t quite listening clearly), some scenes feel like filler. I’m not one to believe every frame in a film needs to have narrative purpose, but we also don’t need two separate club sequences that have practically the same outcome.
I guess I could also point to how there doesn’t seem to be any distinct style to the cinematography or anything, but then I’m just starting to nitpick. In some way, Behind the Shadows makes me think this is the type of movie that Paradox should have been. Louis Koo is great as a man dealing with troubling circumstances and fighting to keep things alive, and while I don’t think he’s had a film as incredible as Drug War in a long time, he’s always enjoyable in what he does… except for maybe Dynasty Warriors.
I suppose only time will tell how people react to Behind the Shadows, but I found it very enjoyable. It’s not a new age classic, but it does tick the same kind of boxes that classic Hong Kong thrillers used to. I’d recommend it.
