Lost in the Stars is a 2022 Chinese film that is now available on Netflix. This twisted mystery crime drama film revolves around He Fei and the case of his missing wife, Li Muzi. He Fei arrived at the police station to register a missing person case, but the Bankal City policemen did not take an interest in his case. The police predicted that Li Muzi had run away, and they did not wish to dig deep. Just when He Fei was feeling completely lost, a Chinese policeman came to his rescue. Officer Zheng showed patience and agreed to help He Fei gather evidence to register the case. The couple had arrived in the Philippines to celebrate their first marriage anniversary, during which, one night, Li Muzi disappeared out of the blue. He Fei tried to drink away his pain, and when he woke up, he saw a woman lying next to him. The woman claimed to be Li Muzi, but he knew that the woman was not his wife. Who was she? And why was she lying?
Spoiler Alert
Plot Summary: What Is The Film About?
It all seemed like a nightmare to He Fei—it had been fifteen days since he last saw his wife, and there was a stranger in his room claiming to be his wife. He called Officer Zheng to investigate the present scenario. The woman had her photograph pasted on Li Muzi’s passport, and she also had pictures of her and He Fei on her phone. She seemed to know every little detail of the couple that He Fei believed no one knew except him and his wife. When Zheng interrogated the hotel staff, they admitted that the woman standing beside He Fei was, indeed, his wife, Li Muzi. He Fei refused to accept it as the truth, and he embarrassed her by ripping her clothes to check whether the woman had the same mark his wife did on her legs. He was shocked to see the exact same mark on the stranger, and Officer Zheng walked out of the hotel.
He Fei knew that he had lost the Officer’s trust, and he decided to gather more evidence to prove to the world that his actual wife was missing. He went back to the bookstore where he and his wife had been before, and he demanded to see the surveillance footage. The woman claiming to be Li Muzi was also at the store, and He Fei called Officer Zheng to prove that he had been telling the truth all along. He Fei was shocked when he saw the fake Li Muzi in the old surveillance footage. The Officer was irritated at his point, and the woman faking to be Li Muzi claimed that her husband suffered from a mental illness, and he took medication for it. The side effects of the medication were forgetfulness, anxiety, and hallucinations. The fact that he could not recognize his wife proved how his condition had worsened. Officer Zheng sided with the woman, and it became clear to He Fei that he was completely trapped.
Who Was Chen Mai?
When Hei Fe went to a bar to grab a drink, he recognized the woman on television. She had helped him get his wallet back when a group of children stole it. The bartender informed him that the woman was Chen Mai, a renowned lawyer known for winning almost all her cases. She was popular for doing her own investigation and finding out the truth no matter what. He Fei was surprised to learn that the woman was at the bar currently. He walked up to her and tried to share his story with her. But Chen Mai had only one condition: she needed her client to share nothing but the truth with her, and she would only help He Fei if he did the same.
The next morning, He Fei went to her office and told her his truth. He discussed how he had fallen in love with Li Muzi the first time he laid his eyes on her. She was a trainee diver, and he assisted her when she was struggling underwater. He texted her regularly, even though she never replied. One day, when he invited her to a Van Gogh exhibition, she surprisingly agreed to it. While driving to the show, they met with an accident, and after the life-threatening incident, everything changed between them, and they decided to get married soon.
The night Li Muzi went missing, He Fei had planned a surprise for her. She decided to join him in a while, and he waited for her at the hotel bar. By the time he returned to their room, she was gone. He Fei managed to win Chen Mai’s trust, and she promised to help him figure out the truth. Chen Mai assumed that a powerful syndicate was plotting against He Fei. Since Li Muzi belonged to an affluent family and had inherited all the fortune after her parent’s deaths, the people involved wanted to take advantage of the situation. Chen Mai believed that the people messing with He Fei did not have his wife since they were not asking for a ransom. She believed that they had hatched the plan after Li Muzi went missing.
Was Li Muzi Behind The Plan?
Chen Mai and He Fei were being followed, and they successfully averted the situation and ended up following the man to find out about the others involved. They walked into an abandoned building and entered a secret room that had all the evidence needed to prove that someone was plotting against He Fei and messing with his sanity. While He Fei was busy collecting evidence, Chen Mai noticed a picture of He Fei at a gambling table. Later, He Fei explained that he had kept an important secret from her.
After coming to the city, He Fei took to gambling to earn extra. His regular job was low-paying, and gambling helped him live a better life. But soon, it turned into an addiction, and he chose to borrow money any way he could to continue playing. He got involved with the wrong people, who threatened to destroy him if he failed to pay back. As a last resort, he gulped down a handful of pills to end his life. Fei’s friend entered his apartment at the right time and rescued him. Soon after the incident, He Fei met Li Muzi, and she brought sunshine back into his life. He promised to stop gambling, and he paid back all the moneylenders with Li Muzi’s help. From that day on, he never dared to gamble, and he stuck to his promise. After learning that He Fei was a gambler, Chen Mai assumed that maybe Li Muzi was behind the plan. She believed that Li Muzi felt cheated after she discovered that her husband was a gambler and wanted to teach him a lesson for destroying her life. But after He Fei confessed that he gave up on old habits, she once again believed him.
What Had Happened To Li Muzi?
Chen Mai started to doubt He Fei when he vehemently denied the possibility of Li Muzi diving into the open sea the night she disappeared. She started to question him once again about the possibility of Li Muzi being the one messing with him, but He Fei was confident that his wife would never plot against him. After paying the cameraman at the studio who had taken pictures of the couple, He Fei believed he no longer needed Chen Mai’s assistance and could file a missing person report all by himself. But the moment he tried to walk away with the evidence, someone started to fire at them. He Fei ended up falling into a waterfall. He managed to swim out of it and return to his hotel. He packed his bag to escape, realizing that the people working against him were extremely powerful.
The woman, pretending to be his wife, entered the room and broke a bottle on her head. He Fei was accused of physical assault, and he landed in a psychiatric hospital. He Fei realized that Officer Zheng was also a part of the group working to prove him insane. They held him captive and threatened to operate on him. After injecting drugs into He Fei, they left the room. Within a few minutes, Chen Mai entered dressed as a nurse. She stated that her life was in danger after she was found involved in the death of Hassel. She believed that the only way to get out of the mess they were in was by finding Li Muzi. Even though He Fei denied knowing the whereabouts of his wife, Chen Mai was confident that he was the only person who knew the truth. She had conducted a thorough search and found out that on the night of their anniversary dinner, Li Muzi rented two diving suits—one for her and one for He Fei.
According to Chen Mai’s theory, He Fei was the last person to have seen Li Muzi. He lied to her about meeting his client at the bar simply to have a good cover story to make everyone believe that he was at the hotel pub when his wife went missing. But in reality, he escaped through the bathroom window and went on a dive with his wife, but he was the only one who returned. He Fei laughed off her accusation, but when she showed him the watch he always wore during dives, his face lost its color. His watch timer proved that he went on a dive that night.
At the end of Lost in the Stars, we find out that He Fei did not accidentally fall for Li Muzi; he laid out a trap for her the moment he learned that she was wealthy. With the help of his friend, he managed to execute the accident plan and convince Li Muzi that she needed a companion to protect her. He Fei could not believe that Chen Mai had figured out the lies in his story. He could either tell the truth and hope for Chen Mai to find a way out of the mess, or he would lose himself to an operation. He disclosed that Li Muzi was at the Mohsha Lighthouse. Even though He Fei had promised not to gamble again, he did not keep his word and fell into his usual habit.
When Li Muzi refused to give him any more money to clear his debt, he decided to steal from her. As he opened her drawer, he found divorce papers. He needed to come up with a plan to inherit the wealth, and the only way to do it was by proving that his wife was missing. He planned the overseas anniversary trip to execute his plan, and he did not feel an ounce of guilt or shame for acting this way. He had convinced himself that, as someone born poor, he was always at a disadvantage and deserved to live a better life as well. Chen Mai left to find Li Muzi, and He Fei was a little surprised when he noticed that the buzzing sound had stopped, and there seemed to be no one outside. He untied himself and ran for his life, only to realize that the hospital was also fake. It was a set designed to make him believe he was in a psychiatric ward. Hei Fe walked into a room in the adjoining building and found a group of people waiting.
Who Was Messing With He Fei And Why?
Hei Fe recognized each individual standing in front of him in the room. Even Hassel was part of the gang. Heading the gang was Chen Mai, or, as she went on to clarify, Shen Man. At the very beginning of Lost in the Stars, we were told that Li Muzi had a best friend named Manman. The only way to recognize her was through her tattoo, and she covered it up to carry out her plan. Li Muzi shared every little detail of her life with Shen Man, and she did the same when they planned an international trip to celebrate their anniversary. Shen Man never liked He Fei, but she was glad that her best friend was finally feeling hopeful. Shen Man and Li Muzi became friends when they both went to the same school abroa. Li Muzi saved Shen Man from committing suicide after she was ragged by her classmates. They supported one another always, and Shen Man never failed to check on her. The last she heard from Li Muzi, she discussed that He Fei planned on showing her the starry night from under the water. She was excited about it, and Shen Man wished her well.
Strangely, Li Muzi did not contact her since, and that was unusual of her. Shen Man knew that the last person who was with her best friend was He Fei, yet he kept on lying about the anniversary night. Since he would have never admitted the truth, she devised a plan to torture him and force him to admit his involvement. She brought her theater group to the island, and they prepared to execute the plan. He Fei could not believe that he was being played with, and he promised to kill Shen Man. As he advanced at her with a sharp object, the police arrived and arrested him.
During Lost in the Stars‘s ending, Li Muzi’s body is found in a cage underwater. She died watching the starry night with a broken heart and a secret she looked forward to sharing. Shen Man paid He Fei a visit in prison; he was still proud of himself and had no guilt. His only regret was not realizing that the lawyer was fake. Shen Man handed him a picture, stating that perhaps only after seeing it would he suffer. It was an ultrasonographic picture of the baby Li Muzi was carrying. She wanted to share the news with He Fei underwater, but that remained unfulfilled. A part of her was still hopeful and wanted to make their marriage work, but He Fei did not trust her. All he cared about was her money, and he did everything he could to inherit it. At the end of the film, we find out that He Fei was sentenced to execution, and Shen Man had to spend thirty days in detention for all the minor crimes she committed to bring justice to her best friend.
