If every effect is the son of the cause and every cause is simply the inescapable track towards it, then what is an accident? Is there really a possibility that the events in this world can move without direction, without any puppeteer, at no charge? Brain does not believe in chance. His wife died in a car accident with no apparent responsible and to believe in coincidences would mean to give up any why. Uncle, Fatman and Woman are other accomplices (no other specific name will be given) with which the brain, for a fee, plan very complex human models that transmute a murder into what seems nothing more than an accident. When the organization clashes with the unexpected death of Fatman during the staging of a difficult job, then something clicks in Brain, who betrayed his illusion of total control of human events, begins to investigate on the event becoming suspicious of his own friends. Paranoia, revenge and mirror games become the ingredients of the investigation against those who would have sabotaged the puppet theater of which he is a betrayed deus ex machina and will accompany us to a final resolution (that is one of the best things about this movie). Soi Cheang is part of the team of Johnny To and the new Hong Kong cinema. The Chinese city is perpetually shrouded in an aura of inhuman and sometimes sterile suspension. Violence erupts as is, without too much indulgence and without any cutting. The intricate accident sequences are thrilling in their complexity and streaked here and there by a certain poetry. The rain, the neon lights and a solar eclipse dusty become the dominant hue of the photography. We can think Brain not as a criminal, but a sort of artist who paints on a canvas the instruction book of human-robot who thinks he can choose, who thinks things randomly happen to him, who thinks he's really living.
Giovanni Cassanese www.kayfa.be
Giovanni Cassanese www.kayfa.be