Nelson Yu
After deciding to set this film in exotic Brazil, writer-director Nelson Yu promptly ran out of steam.
Anthony Wong stars as Yuda, a Portuguese-speaking Chinese crime honcho slowly losing his grip on power, and Jo Odagiri is his reckless Japanese adopted son, Kirin. But Wong’s weary authority and Odagiri’s nonchalant cool are all for naught.
The two have an oddly touching relationship which is never fully explored and is, instead, buried under incoherent action that lurches from the streets of Sao Paulo to the jungles of the Amazon.
It ends with some Buddhist sayings which are meant to be the philosophical underpinning of the movie, but come across as a desperate last-ditch attempt to grab at some semblance of meaning.
This disaster is a Brazil-China-Hong Kong-Japan co-production; which tells you exactly how many cooks it took to spoil this broth.
Anthony Wong stars as Yuda, a Portuguese-speaking Chinese crime honcho slowly losing his grip on power, and Jo Odagiri is his reckless Japanese adopted son, Kirin. But Wong’s weary authority and Odagiri’s nonchalant cool are all for naught.
The two have an oddly touching relationship which is never fully explored and is, instead, buried under incoherent action that lurches from the streets of Sao Paulo to the jungles of the Amazon.
It ends with some Buddhist sayings which are meant to be the philosophical underpinning of the movie, but come across as a desperate last-ditch attempt to grab at some semblance of meaning.
This disaster is a Brazil-China-Hong Kong-Japan co-production; which tells you exactly how many cooks it took to spoil this broth.
(ST)