The Sheep Detectives is a good yarn, star-studded prequel Cold War 1994 gets the job done

The Sheep Detectives (PG)

109 minutes, opens on May 7

★★★★☆

The story: Every night, good shepherd George (Hugh Jackman) reads mystery novels aloud to his beloved flock, pretending his sheep can understand. They can, actually, and with their criminology literacy, they go sleuthing upon discovering a murder on their English countryside farm.

Who you calling a muttonhead?

The ovine stars of the British all-ages family comedy The Sheep Detectives – each a digital creation – have lovable personalities with the celebrity voices of Bryan Cranston and Patrick Stewart that baa to humans and speak English among themselves. They also boast deductive intellect.

The smartest is the Shetland ewe Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who emboldens her meek barnyard brethren to venture into the village and investigate since the local constable (Nicholas Braun) is a bumbling oaf.

Already circling their half-dozen suspects – from a long-lost daughter (Molly Gordon) to the butcher (Conleth Hill) to the innkeeper (Hong Chau) – is a big-city reporter (Nicholas Galitzine).

Emma Thompson drops by in a scene-stealing cameo as the victim’s peremptory lawyer. Shocking secrets are revealed in her will reading.

There is intrigue indeed in German author Leonie Swann’s 2005 children’s book Three Bags Full, which American director Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3, 2017; and Minions: The Rise Of Gru, 2022) has adapted for his live-action debut.

But it is not just the whodunnit that gets pondered. The adventure is witty, cute and, at the same time, almost existentially profound, as “the kindest creatures on earth” are introduced to human’s cruelty towards animals – especially in the meat industry.

They grapple poignantly with death and sorrow, inclusivity and devotion, and God being at once a shepherd, a lamb and a piece of bread.

Hot take: It is a good yarn, no mere fluff.

Cold War 1994 (NC16)

117 minutes, now in cinemas

★★★☆☆

The story: Hong Kong organised crime superintendent MB Lee (Terrance Lau) stumbles on a politically sensitive kidnapping and is suddenly on the run from cops, gangsters, cops in collusion with gangsters, as well as the business elite.

Cold War, winner of nine Hong Kong Film Awards, and Cold War 2 were the Hong Kong cinema sensations of 2012 and 2016 respectively, collectively earning HK$100 million.

Cold War 1994 by franchise creator and writer-director Longman Leung is a prequel that revisits a 23-year-old classified case to understand the abduction of the older MB (Tony Leung Ka-fai) in 2017, after his promotion to Secretary for Security.

Aaron Kwok’s commissioner Sean Lau and the councillor Oswald Kan, played by Chow Yun Fat, briefly return.

And the story will require your full attention for its dozens more new characters once it enters 1994.

Peter Choi (Daniel Wu) is MB’s treacherous boss.

A plutocrat (Tse Kwan Ho), the brother-in-law of the kidnap hostage (Carlos Chan), and his son (Wu Kang-ren) are from the city’s wealthiest clan.

The standout is Louise Wong as a triad boss whom MB partners to expose a labyrinthine conspiracy.

The talky, densely plotted crime drama has multiple engrossing sub-dramas shored up by a stacked ensemble that extends to Yuen Biao, Karen Mok, Cecilia Yip and Hugh Bonneville in cameos.

Everyone is jockeying for power in the colony’s end times of splintering infrastructures and shifting allegiances.

The Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002 to 2003) is the obvious template. This thriller does not have the allegorical heft, but it does have two charged hours that climax in a staggering rain-slicked chase through Kai Tak Airport.

Hot take: The blockbuster series builds on its success with enough energy and ambition for a fourth instalment, Cold War 1995, due in 2027.