This year’s Tokyo International Film Festival will screen 24 films from 17 countries in its Winds of Asia-Middle East competition, but two gems of a movie that stand out this year is the Hong Kong action film Mad Detective co-directed by Jonnie To and Wai Ka-Fai. Likewise, the Thai movie Khao Chon Kai by director Withit Kamsrakaew who made his feature film debut while still at university is a memorable “feel good” movie.

In the Mad Detective, a harrowing and at times hauntingly beautiful film, we follow the life of an insane detective (Det. Bun) as he tries to recover a missing police pistol that has been used in connection with a series of recent heists and murders. Bun’s unorthodox approach to capturing the criminal involves burying himself alive and gorging himself in an attempt to emulate the inner workings of the criminal psyche. A psychological-action movie not for the faint of heart as in the gruesome opening scene Bun slices off his ear and offers it as a present at his superior’s farewell party. However, with the gift to see into a person’s inner personality he struggles to close in on the killer, led on by signs of God and an imaginary wife he has shaped out of his own mind after she has left him in real life.

Likewise, Khao Chon Kai is the coming-of-age story of a rag-tag group of high school boys, who must overcome their differences and together realize the true meaning of friendship. The boys’ training is in a military training camp replete with a military techno soundtrack. The boys endure a grueling five day experience that will exempt them from the Thai military service. Noi participates in the five day camp with friends of varying uniqueness, including a homosexual, a twin, a lover, a scapegoat, and a man with a sixth sense.

Both of these films strike a cord in the hearts of the audience as the Mad Detective allows us to glimpse the inner workings of the criminal mind and Khao Chon Kai reminds us that only through trials and tribulations can we truly know who our real friends are.