'Only The River Flows' Movie Ending Explained And Recap: Did Detective Ma Catch The Serial Killer?

Even though director Wei Shujun’s Chinese neo-noir crime thriller Only the River Flows is adapted from writer Yu Hua’s novella, Mistakes by the River, genre fans can’t help but notice the myriad similarities the movie shares with Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece, Memories of Murder—be it through its narrative and visual composition, moody and atmospheric small town aesthetics, or its exploration of themes of ethics, social consciousness, and scope of morality through investigation of serial killings. But aside from all this, what’s going to excite genre fans—the subtle use of dark humor to poke at the decrepit administrative system and the degenerated state of conscience among people in power—are some of the major signifiers that the movie shares with its South Korean spiritual predecessor. Gorgeously shot in 16-mm film to capture the Chinese rural town in the mid-90s it uses as its setting, Only the River Flows is an extremely evocative experience, which draws lineage from a strain of late-80s Hong Kong crime thrillers but understandably a bit cautious when pointing at the socio-political tribulations of the country. 

Spoilers Ahead

Who Are the Prime Suspects in the Serial Killings?

Only the River Flows opens in the rural riverside Peishui City in China during 1995, and the opening sequence is quite telling of the then condition of rural provinces. While playing with his friends, a kid gets startled after ending up on the other side of a half-torn-down high-rise apartment. This was a time when the rapid development across villages and small townships had come to a striking halt. Villagers and residents of small towns thronged towards urban areas as poverty increased with the rise of consumerism, which is highlighted as it is revealed that the town’s movie theater is shutting down and will be used as a police station. While the people are in a hopeless, desperate state of mind, the authorities continue to promote state-glorifying exercises, which is especially seen in the police procedurals as the police chief continues to emphasize the importance of merit lists to his subordinates more than the actual piled-up cases themselves. Irrespective of the present situation of increasing crime and destitution, one is expected to pretend everything is perfectly fine and play along with the charade. In that sense, turning the local theater into a police station seems quite appropriate. 

Bright-eyed, sharp chief detective of the police station, Ma Zhe, is assigned to the investigation of the murder of an elderly woman, whose body is found by the riverside with a fatal wound in her neck. The seemingly kind old lady, who made her living raising geese, had no enmity or past history with people in her locality, and had adopted a mute madman of whom she took care on her own. The madman in question used to get bullied by local kids, and initially, as he isn’t found, the authorities start suspecting he had a role in the crime. However, after Ma finds him and studies him for a while, he becomes almost convinced that the person in question isn’t the culprit. From the handbag found at the scene of crime, an audio cassette is recovered, and as the recording is played, Ma identifies a woman named Qian Ling to be the voice on the tape, who was sending the recorded audio to her secret lover, a poet, Wang Hong. Turns out, Hong and Qian were supposed to meet at the riverside on the day the tragedy took place; although Hong didn’t turn up, Qian had arrived at the scene, and getting terrified after seeing the corpse of the elderly woman, she fled from the spot, accidentally leaving her handbag at the location. Hong reveals having seen a tall, wavy-haired woman, wearing a textile factory uniform, at the riverbank on a previous day, who was leaving the spot in a hurry. Following the clue, Ma and his associate, Xie, interrogate the factory officials to learn that only a male hairdresser, Xu Liang, left the shift early that day. As Ma decides to question Liang about his involvement in this scenario, he seems too eager to surrender and have himself arrested, as he is convinced that one way or another—that is the only conclusion to this investigation. Xu Liang reveals that he was present on the day mentioned by Hong, as he had gone fishing alone. Later, Ma learns Liang has previously been accused of indecency.

Why Did Xu Liang Kill Himself?

The unknown killer strikes again; this time Hong is killed in the similar way the elderly woman had met her end, and later on, Ma and Xie deliver the love letter Hong had with him to his beloved Qian, only to take it back again as evidence. As the murder case turns into a serial murder investigation, higher authorities start putting pressure on the chief, who in turn rushes Ma to find results as soon as possible. Ma and his wife, Bai, are expecting their first child, and parental pressures are already mounting on his shoulders, along with which this ongoing investigation adds up much stress. However, the investigation comes to an inexplicable and surprising end, as the madman, smeared in blood and holding the possible murder weapon, is found by Ma and Xie. The rest of the precinct and the chief are quick to consider the case closed as Ma is heaped with praises by everyone, but in his mind he is convinced that the real killer is still at large while the madman has been framed for crimes he didn’t commit.

Ma decides to continue his investigation anyway, much to the chief’s displeasure, and doubles down on the search for the tall, wavy-haired woman by questioning all the female factory workers. He goes to Xu Liang, questioning him about any female clients he had served recently whose appearance matches the suspect. Liang isn’t able to provide a satisfying answer and only repeats his request to get himself arrested already. Seeing his past records, Ma has learned that Liang was unjustifiably detained previously, and the experience has made him hopeless enough to consider himself a scapegoat in any police investigation scenario. Ma assures him that Liang will not be treated in a similar way by him. However, the next day Xu Liang is rushed to the hospital as he had consumed pills with the intention to end his life, and searching in his house, Ma finds a box—the contents of which reveal that Liang was secretly a crossdresser—and the wavy-haired lady in question whom Hong had seen the previous day at the riverbank. Liang had suffered much previously, as it seems his identity had resulted in him getting derisive treatment from others, which is why he couldn’t have endured facing the same once again and tried to take his life. 

Ma faces a crisis in his personal life, as during a routine checkup, his and Bai’s unborn child is revealed to have a strong possibility of having a genetic defect since birth, and later the couple have a prolonged argument about whether or not they should abort the child. Ma faces trouble finding his merit certificate, for which the chief constantly conveys a reminder. Meanwhile, the madman escapes from captivity and is presumably responsible for the death of a child—as an eyewitness reveals to have seen him in action—although he remains sketchy about the details. This brings the heat on the police department from higher officials, who give the police chief a week-long deadline to wrap things up on an already closed investigation. The madman isn’t found after extensive investigation, and Ma, who awaits the madman’s return at the elderly woman’s house, is unable to locate him either. To add to his misery, Liang meets Ma to share his gratitude for him saving his life, only to end his own life later by jumping from the roof of a theater-turned-police station onto Ma’s car, dressed as a woman. 

Was Detective Ma Able to Catch the Serial Killer?

Continuous failures in investigation, parental anxieties, and guilt over Liang’s death put Ma’s psyche on the brink of collapse as he gets more and more obsessed with the serial murder case, and his mental burdens are reflected through a dream sequence where Ma sees the deceased victims of the killer interacting with him, the madman killing them, people related to the case mocking him, and the chief pestering him for a merit list. Ma’s fever dream ends after he tries to put out a fire on a movie camera, and ironically enough, he was experiencing all this while dozing off on a bench in the theater-turned-police station. Ma decides to quit his job to avoid the insurmountable pressure, but the police chief refuses to accept his resignation.

Ma decides to shift the responsibility of the investigation to Xie, and after a long while, starts devoting his time to his wife, Bai, as the couple plans and prepares to welcome their child. However, as Ma goes to the photo studio for a photoshoot with his wife, the ghost of the past doesn’t seem to leave him still as he sees the madman in the pictures of another customer. Later that night, Ma feels himself getting stalked by the madman, and he ends up gunning his down in an alley—only to realize while reporting the incident to his chief that all of it was a figment of his imagination. Ma’s mind has been put in a troubling state, and despite his efforts to turn a new page in his life, he won’t get closure until he manages to wrap up the case once and for all. 

Later, Ma is seen taking a dip at the river, either to ease his afflicted mind or to kill himself in despair; we cannot tell for sure, but as he sees the madman watching him from afar, he proceeds to take a rock and bash the madman’s head with it, knocking him unconscious as a result. This time, his mind is not playing any tricks, and he has indeed injured the madman, following which the madman gets arrested once again. Ma gets an award for showing his ‘bravery’ and ‘deductive skills’ by apprehending the culprit and is cheered on by a big crowd. However, he himself is aware of the shambolic state of the entire scenario; he ultimately proved Liang’s assumption about the system to be true by detaining an innocent man to put a seal on the case, to find a sense of closure, and to stop his mind from spiraling down to derangement. Beginning as an idealistic investigator, he has now traded his morality for personal peace by defecting to the rotten system, and the cheering crowd in the theater seems like the audience enjoying themselves to a farcical performance in this context. 

A year later, Ma and Bai are shown to have happily raised their newborn child; the peace and happiness the family enjoys is brought on at the expense of an innocent man’s life, which makes the seemingly warm moment have sinister undertones. 

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