As a supposed lover of Asian cinema, to my shame I have to admit that the work of Wei Shujun has somewhat passed me by. That being said, if Only The River Flows is at all indicative of the rest of his back catalogue, I will be making it my mission to watch these at my earliest opportunity.

Based on a novella by Yu Hua, Shujun’s latest film, Only The River Flows, is a haunting tale of a series of murders that disrupts the quiet calm of a small rural Chinese town in the 1990s. The story follows detective Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) as he investigates them, but finds himself increasingly affected by the case, as he deals with his own domestic issues at home.

At first glance, the film may draw comparisons to other recent police procedurals like Memories of Murder or Zodiac. Visually, it does resemble Bong Joon-Ho’s masterpiece, but in terms of execution and narrative, the two films are worlds apart. Instead, I found myself more reminded of Citizen X, a lesser-known TV movie about a serial killer investigation that focuses less on the crimes themselves and more on the emotional toll the investigation takes on the man leading it.

Like that film, Only The River Flows captures the frustration and despair of a detective confronting bureaucratic barriers at every turn. Here, however, it’s more complacency than corruption that hinders the investigation. The police force is undervalued and underfunded, forcing Ma to shoulder the burden of the case alone. Meanwhile, his superior seems more interested in playing ping-pong than in doing actual police work. Incidentally, Citizen X is well worth a watch – in the midst of some genuinely disturbing scenes of murder is a surprisingly touching friendship that grows between Stephen Rea and Donald Sutherland’s characters.

A subtle, brooding piece of modern film noir, Only The River Flows is an altogether gentler, more contemplative film than something like the more melodramatic Decision To Leave, which emulated noir in a much more self-conscious way. Shujun’s film has a thick atmosphere and there is a potent sense of unease, particularly in the early scenes, where the direction of the mystery is unclear. There’s also a gentle thread of humor running through the film, embodied in the character of Ma’s irreverent subordinate Xie (Tong Linkai) whose guileless reactions make him the designated punching bag for Ma’s frustrations. It’s a ruthless humour, as demonstrated in the one purely happy moment of the film, which is brutally and immediately undercut in its most tragic scene.

Zhu Yilong delivers a wonderfully understated, lived-in performance as Captain Ma. You really feel the toll the case takes on him, as he gets increasingly erratic and emotional as the story unfolds. Yilong is remarkable in his role – in some scenes he seems to be channelling Tony Leung in his more subtle reactions and mannerisms. He perfectly conveys the balance between Ma’s convictions, intuition and creeping uncertainty, especially as he grapples with his impending fatherhood, drawing clear parallels with the case without ever verbalizing them. Similarly, Hexiang Yan brings a real sense of pathos to the poor, doomed hairdresser Yan Jing. His pessimistic acceptance that it’s just a matter of time before he’s arrested is initially presented as comically absurd, before subsequent revelations demonstrate the tragedy of his character.

Shot on 16mm film stock at the insistence of Shujun, who claims that “the texture of film itself truly contributes to creating a sense of time.” It’s true, the grainy look places the film irrevocably in the 1990s, as well as looking incredible. Shujun has a great eye for composition, and every shot is meticulously framed, with striking use of light sources and an incredible depth of field. Cinematographer Chengma Zhiyuan makes evocative use of wide-shots, and the use of rain to indicate a murder is something that could have been really hacky but comes across as a lot more profound. For the most part the film has a natural look, something helped immeasurably by the film stock, however Shujun also features some stylised visual flourishes. The POV shot of the first killing resembles something from Brian De Palma, and there is a beautifully surreal dream sequence in which Ma is confronted by each of the murder victims in turn, culminating in an incredible short where a celluloid screen dissolves into a mass of ping pong balls.

In essence, this is a celebration of analogue – Shujun appears to delight in showing off the technology of the time, through the prominence of such defunct media as Polaroid photographs, audio cassettes overhead projectors and more, while in a lightly absurdist touch, the police station is relocated to a local cinema, where Ma is seen curiously examining old film reels.

While the recent trend in police procedural is to depict a lack of closure, Shujun doesn’t do this here. However what he does do is suggest that the mystery itself isn’t the part we should be focusing on. Indeed the resolution is the one part of the film that doesn’t work for me. The mystery is almost non-existent, and there is no big reveal. I was expecting an additional twist at the end, but the resolution is anticlimactic, and honestly doesn’t tally with what we have seen of the protagonist. This de-emphasis on conventional storytelling and plot resolution feels reminiscent of Hou Hsiao Hsien’s directing style, where the information is all there, but you need to spot the significant details yourself.

Sometimes wonderfully moody, sometimes frustratingly impenetrable, Only The River Flows is an un-apologetically subdued film noir / character study disguised as a crime procedural. Shujun tells his story using subtle symbolism and minimal exposition, and the result is a beautifully shot film anchored by Zhu’s captivating performance. While the mystery itself may be lacking, an evocative atmosphere and uncanny sense of time and place leave a lasting impression.

Only The River Flows is in UK and Irish cinemas from 16 August