Sleepless Town: Discussion

Rob:
Chelle had been attempting to get me to watch this film for months, tempting with promises of boobies aplenty. And boobies there were, yet I suspect her motives went deeper, that perhaps she wanted me to watch this film because it's, I don't know... good. And good it was. The first thing that struck me was the look of the film: its gorgeous photography and vivid color palette of neon blues and greens against the backdrop of night. It was definitely a film noir with all the classic tropes.

Its femme fatale was especially good, so good, in fact, that I had really hoped she would end up going against type and turn out to be a decent human being underneath it all.  Played by Mirai Yamamoto, she wasn't the sultry, drop-dead gorgeous asian babe you might expect.  She was pretty, but it was her personality that made her so attractive. She was absolutely charming, so much so that I, as a viewer, fell for her act as much as poor Takeshi Kaneshiro did. Again and again his character was warned against her, and he never fully trusted her, but in his awesomely understated performance, you could see that he had fallen for her.  She betrays him, and in the end, he kills her for it. Which kind of pissed me off. With all the film noir build-up, I was really hoping that the story would take a turn for the unexpected and end happily. I suppose I can't fault it for not having the ending I would have liked, and the end had a poignance of its own.

My only major criticism of the film is that as an ignorant American, I could not keep straight all the character names that would come up during the discussion of the warring crime bosses.  As a result, I really didn't know what the plot was half the time.  Honestly though, I think the plot was beside the point.  The film was really about the relationship between the two leads, and as such, it was a sexy, tragic film that I will probably watch again.  If only to work out what the plot is.  And for the boobies.

Chelle:  I was afraid he was going to fall asleep.  While there is lots of dialogue, it's all in Japanese, Mandarine, Taiwainese, and possibly Korean (my ignorant ear is untrained except to tell Japanese, Mandarine and Cantonese apart, and it's sound identification, not comprehension), which doesn't really register to the average Westerner 'cause it's all English on the bottom of the screen for us.  And Rob is right, there are lot of plot complexities to sort through.  But half way thru he started drowning himself in coffee and did enjoy the characters (and the nudity).

Having been a film student, Rob noticed the film noir immediately, which totally escaped me.  It is classic noir and it is beautiful filmed.  Hell, it won Best Cinematography at the '98 Hong Kong Film Awards.  But, truth be told, that's not why I like it so much.