Review | ‘100pc Hong Kong-made’ animated take on Sherlock Holmes adventures has genuine quality – review
- The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail Breaker reimagines Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventures in a world of anthropomorphic animals
- Tale of a chivalrous criminal who escapes from prison shows the quality city’s animators can produce when they put their passion, and money, into a film
3/5 stars
Breaking the law and maintaining the moral high ground are the themes at the heart of The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail Breaker, a deceptively simple animated feature that will keep children engaged while offering food for thought for the grown-ups accompanying them.
The film is adapted by directors Toe Yuen Kin-to and Matthew Chow Wing-siu from two episodes of the illustrated children’s novel series of the same name by author Lai Ho, who is credited as the script editor. Billed as a “100 per cent Hong Kong-made” production, it vividly reimagines Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuthing adventures in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals.
The Greatest Jail Breaker opens with a prologue in which Sherlock Holmes (voiced by Ken Wong) puts his incompetent Scotland Yard peers – led by Gorilla (Louis Yuen Siu-cheung) – in their place by quickly solving the murder of a tycoon turned moneylender. It offers the first glimpse of 19th-century London, where a yawning wealth gap causes much suffering.
The story proper begins when Sherlock and his sidekick, Dr Watson (Monte Cho), go after a master thief known as White Storm, who is beloved by the population for robbing the rich and giving to the poor. When Sherlock identifies the chivalrous criminal as Mack (Stephen Au Kam-tong) and helps police arrest him in front of his orphaned daughter, the public turn on the detective.