Patrick Yau's first movie was described by some Hong Kong critics at the time as carbon-copy Wong Kar- wai (presumably in reference to the off-centre camerawork); but in retrospect it has much of the same romantic fatalism, black humour and quirky, unexpected touches as his subsequent The Longest Niteand latest
Expect the Unexpected. It's also very much a Milkyway Image production, with the fingerprints of scriptwriter Wai Ka-fai (whose directorial debut, Too Many Ways To Be No. 1, is also in this year's festival) and executive producer Johnnie To all over it - from the oblique narrative (which makes the audience work as hard
as the characters), strikingly offbeat use of music, and view of life as a shifting kaleidoscope in which people's fortunes can change dramatically from one moment to the next.
Japanese-Chinese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a young mobster who is seriously wounded in a fight and loses the will to live. However, after accepting a HK$88,000 contract to kill a Thai gangster, he unexpectedly wins HK$200,000 when gambling, and decides to retire. He subcontracts the hit to another killer, who turns out to be a young woman (Carman Lee) who's half-crazed and at the end of her rope. After a wild "courtship," the two fall in love - but one of them still has to carry out the hit, and maybe die doing it.
Derek Elley