Xie bu ya zheng

The personal style is strong, the performance is disastrous and the pacing is chaotic, but it's still kind of funny to watch

This is a very solid neo-western. Jiang Wen, once again, proves that he is the most talented filmmaker in China. The tension arises right from start, and does not end until finish. The length of this film is 137 minutes, but you never feel it that long, as it is rather compact, fast-paced and intense. The multi-angle, quick-cut editing, which used to be a trademark of Stanley Kubrick, appears frequently in this movie. The inherent strong violence is neutralized by the underlying sly humor to a large extent, and this characteristic was the signature of Quentin Tarantino.

Liao Fan, who had been underrated for a long time, proves again to be the best actor of his generation. His performances are just impeccable that he is simply unrecognizable for his particular role. The production design, I have to say, is unique, with many of the scenes set on the roof. The sound editing and cinematography are also noteworthy.

We watched it and we just couldn't help shaking our heads and looked at each other with embarrassed sneers. At those moments when we traded our looks, the only thing floated over our subconsciousness was: "WTF?!" "What's going on?" "Is it necessary to ridicule themselves with such out-of-control pointless crap?" The whole movie just felt so boring, so pretentious, so exaggerated, so aimless, so twisted, so abnormal. When the absurdity went on and on, we just felt tired and decided not to watch, hanging on and forced ourselves to sit through to the end was just so inhumanly cruel. Yeah, there were people who always gave us some independent reviews with high ratings to show they were the designated few who were privileged and smart enough to understand what's going on in an absurd randomly patched-up junk, they can always get something out of nothing from a going nowhere, a dog jumping around and trying so hard to bite its own tail film. Well, lucky you, enjoy the tosh and have nice digestion.

As usual, Jiang Wen served as the director, screenwriter, and actor of the film, but this time he seems to have lost focus. Occasionally, the aura is reminding the audience from time to time that the movie is relatively safe and relatively interesting. The lantern-style character rushed to show the world view to the audience, so Jiang Wen's quick editing with full tension turned into a rush in the film. Seeing the end, I feel that it is a sloppy ending in the sense of reason, and the sensibility feels "finally over."

The director want to say too much, but he don't want the audience to understand. There's too much drama on the roof and it doesn't make any sense. Some of the first passages are quite good, but the latter is pure self-liberation. Audience? It does not exist.