Arrested Memory

Official Selection, 2026 Venice International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2026 Toronto International Film Festival

Cult favorite pulp writer-director Sabu is back serving a high-octane thriller with a slyly hilarious challenge: craft an action-packed police procedural with a detective who can’t remember a thing. Once a legend, Captain Lee (Ethan Juan) is transferred to a rural station in Taiwan after a sting operation in Taipei goes catastrophically awry. Lee gets assigned to a kidnapping case involving the child of a Japanese business tycoon (Shin’ichi Tsutsumi) and the handoff of a multi-million dollar ransom that quickly goes sideways as he forgets the plan. On top of that, he’s dealing with a sassy translator who doesn’t exactly help with language barriers and a drug addict in withdrawal who somehow outsmarts everyone. Will Lee’s muscle memory kick in and save the day?

Sabu flips the somber memory loss genre on its head with sidequests, dance numbers, and misunderstandings of absurd proportions. At the heart of all the narrative twists and turns, Sabu’s detective wrangles with guilt and duty, while oddly familiar people, including the ghosts of his dead colleagues, just might help him find his true self again, one Judo throw at a time.

– Wilda Wong