The film is about a criminal who attempts to help out a deadbeat criminal partner while wooing over a cousin he just discovered existed.
There's plenty to like in the film. The meet-up between Wah (Andy Lau) and Ngor (Maggie Cheung) plays out like a more serious version of Stranger Than Paradise. These early scenes are simultaneously very funny and also tantalizing.
The romantic elements are deeply erotic and even swooning. There's an epic sweeping scene set to Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" where the lovers run and embrace after having previously avoided acting on their feelings. This is every bit as affecting as the film intends it to be and exquisitely stylish to boot.
There's also a significant amount of brutal violence that at times is strangely elegant in how its shot by director Wong Kar Wai. The violence is twisted enough that though its entertaining its also almost never allows us to entirely be in the moment. Much of the romance is also dark and neurotic enough that it never becomes entirely cliched.
The film has sentimentality to it which is perhaps best seen in the relationship between Wah and Fly (Jacky Cheung) which is brotherly. Wah keeps bailing out Fly from his botched criminal activities and debts that increasingly put both in harms way. Wah would be better off without him but he can't escape the codependency.
But a lot of these elements while interesting on their own feel disconnected from one another, as if this is three or so different concepts for films pushed together. While Kar Wai certainly knows how to shoot things so their far more engaging and artistically interesting than the material might suggest, it still doesn't stop the film from feeling incomplete.
Grade: B
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