Film description

A film about gangsters, but not a gangster film, a road movie whose protagonist doesn’t travel, a comedy with pitch-black, razor-sharp humor. Chung Mong-hong is the master of a subversive use of genres – he can stretch them out, burn them, and condense them like a master of cinematic molecular gastronomy.

The helpless Na Dow finds his first (but not exactly legal) work. He is supposed to come at dawn, pick up some mysterious packages, get into a taxi, and deliver them to a certain warehouse on the other side of the country. But when, instead of the usual driver, he meets the obtrusive Old Xu, he will have to change both the vehicle and the game plan, confusing his employers and getting into a lot of trouble.

The legendary Hong Kong comedian, Michael Hui, reaches the peaks of sarcasm in the role of the weary taxi driver. Vithaya Pansringarm gets a cameo as a Thai mobster – he played a similar character in Nicolas Winding Refn’s film. Refn’s fans will certainly enjoy this cinematic ride: sparkling dialog intertwined with long, meaningful silences, brutality mixed with melancholy, a precisely built-up suspense, and a paradoxical sense of humor, all enclosed in hypnotically beautiful frames. Chung, who was the film’s director, screenwriter, and cinematographer, creates a truly auteur, refined piece of cinema.

Jagoda Murczyńska