A reckless female detective faces a gruesome crime scene during a murder investigation, and a fellow detective insists that her case is a small piece of a larger serial killing spree. To bring the killer to justice she risks everything and puts herself directly in the killer’s sights.

Written by Tu Hu and directed by Li Lingcong aka “Candy Li”, Blood 13 is a crime thriller that is light on thrills but has a solid storyline. It is notable because it is female lead, being directed, written, and starring women who take control of the perverse plot and produce a film that is ultimately entertaining despite some missteps. Premiering at the 2018 Beijing International Film Festival, Blood 13 has recently been made available to U.S. audiences via digital platforms as well as on DVD.

In Blood 13, a woman is horrifically killed and dogged detective Xing Min (Lu Huang) and her partner Mei Shuo (Heng Li) are put on the case. When the circumstances of the slaying seem to match an old case from 15 years ago, veteran investigator Old Zhou (Gang Xie) is brought in, much to Xing’s and Mei’s dismay. Despite their differences, the team pieces together the story of the latest victim, but then more corpses begin to appear and now it seems the murderer is on a killing spree. Attacking women in red-dresses by night and hiding in plain sight by day, the team closes in on their deadly suspect, however, his cleverness keeps him just out of their reach. In a last-ditch effort, Old Zhou and Xing Min devise a plan to use her as bait to catch their killer, but when Xing Min sacrifices herself in order to come face to face with their killer, the rest of her team must race against time to save their boss and friend.

For a film that celebrates female empowerment by its star being an independent, no-nonsense police investigator, the movie fails to humanize the central figures of the investigation — prostitutes. Blood 13 leans on demeaning them through the eyes of more than a few characters, it doesn’t challenge old viewpoints about sex workers which would have been more interesting, and similarly, the storyline itself was uninteresting in that it was predictable. What’s more, the climax was a letdown, as Xing Min’s veneer of independence cracks when she somehow is suddenly the victim and is referred to as “girl” by her colleagues. It had that femme-fatale-yet-damsel vibe that Luc Besson films often have, but at least his films are suspenseful, and they look über cool.

The chase leading up to her rescue was awkward. By playing it safe at so many opportunities where the movie could have “went there”, Blood 13 instead putters out and continues with convenient and non-threatening turns of events. The killer is supposed to be a monster, but we hardly see him being gruesome; this killer could have been written a lot heavier in particular. It also never makes sense to me when killers explain themselves to the main-character-victim in movies, it is expositional and feels inauthentic. The heroine/damsel walks away with barely a scratch on her, the audience doesn’t get the satisfaction of a killer getting his come-uppins, and the movie feels flat and forgettable. Where I was looking for suspense, I was let down by the film’s commitment to being conventional… and boring… when it could have been a thrilling crime mystery.

One of my favorite thrillers ever is master manipulator Na Hong Jin’s heart-racing slugfest The Chaser (2008), another investigative thriller centered around a missing prostitute. The Chaser had a great character arc for its antihero, the women were treated as valuable and worth fighting for, and its brutal violence was unflinching without reveling in unnecessity. Blood 13 was missing all of this. Though it was shot well and had a few visually striking moments, there is nothing new in its premise or design, it is simply another by the book police drama. Though you may be better off watching Infernal Affairs (2002) or Memories of Murder (2003) if you haven’t already, for fans of the crime thriller genre you may want to add Blood 13 to your list, just because.