Written by Cameron Geiser

Warning: This review is for Arrested Memory, which is a film presented at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. There may be slight spoilers present. Reader discretion is advised.

Image courtesy of the Toronto International film Festival.

Written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Sabu, who I will now be looking into, Arrested Memory follows a Taiwanese police captain (Ethan Juan) as he begins to spiral into memory loss after an intense sting operation. After some time we’re onto the next case on his first day in a new station where he’s assigned to a kidnapping. A wealthy Japanese businessman living in Taiwan with his family had his son taken as he was walking home. Once the team is assembled at the family’s house they make a plan to catch the kidnappers with the captain standing in as the father. He just has to pass off the bag of money in a train station and they’ll release the kid. At least that’s what they planned for, but the kidnappers call the captain on his burner phone telling him to get into a car parked outside and then toss the bag of money out his window after going through a tunnel. Simple, right? Well, when the man that everything relies on begins to lose all sense of identity and even reality at times, things get dicey.

What makes Arrested Memory stand above your standard genre pulp fare, which it very much is a part of, is the captain’s memory fading more and more over the course of the film. At times he doesn’t even know his own name and reverts to childhood actions and memories that we’re given context to in flashes of brief but integral story elements building out the psyche and history of this character and how he came to be such an intense enforcer of the law as we see him in the opening scene. He is so confident and precise that it makes sense later on when his reputation makes everyone assume he’s pulling some brilliant plays when he’s really just lost in his own mind. Cutting between the police team back with the Japanese family, the captain wandering about with a bag of thirty million yen, and the crooks who’re trying to track the captain down themselves to nab the money, it’s all quite brilliant with how everything interlocks. Set up and pay off. Cinema at its purest. Sabu knows the game well, again, add him to the list of filmmakers I need to watch more of.

With how unpredictable the plot was I was entranced by how it all unfolded. The opening of the film perfectly showcases just how capable and brutally violent the captain can be, thus when he doesn’t even know where he’s going or what he’s doing, it left me wondering when he might flip and explode with violence with his years of training kicking in based on muscle memory. Which does happen in increasingly hilarious ways. I won’t spoil them all for you, but this film had me cackling at the strange turns things take. Like when the captain was driving to the Japanese businessman’s house early in the film and spontaneously thinks he’s back in the sting operation of the opening scene and randomly whips the car around to arrest a random citizen on the suspicion of drug possession. When the punky guy does actually happen to have drugs on him it proves the captain's instincts right, however, bringing the small-time druggie to the meetup at the Japanese household has unexpected evolutions over the course of the film that was truly satisfying.

If you’re looking for something a little pulpy, a smidge noir-ish perhaps, Arrested Memory is worth your time. A police procedural with a signature flare that digs a little deeper into how memory can dissipate, making you question the idea of identity and what makes us who we say we are. At an hour and forty minutes this tight crime action comedy was absolutely a winner in my book.

Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.