It’s day 8 of TIFF. It’s 12:02 a.m. I’ve done 9 other posts today. Ocean Flame is not good enough to keep me typing much longer.
Wang Yao is a real badass – he’s the head of a low-level Hong Kong prostitution and blackmail ring. One day he meets a beautiful waitress named Li Chuan, and does what any badass would. He seduces her and then pimps her out.
This is another in a long list of films about people enmeshed in abusive, symbiotic relationships. He treats her deplorably. She wants his love and will do anything to get it. She is the face at the end of his fist; the neck caught in his vise-like grip. There is no arc to these characters. I wasn’t invested in them in any way. When it all goes horrible wrong (as it must in a movie like this), I was nonplussed. Sigh!
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