So this is Wong Kar Wai’s debut film. I went into this expecting it to be… y’know, a first movie, the thing you make when you’re first learning your craft, which will show glimmers of your mature talent, but will be tbh not all that good.

And this time, I was right. When you watch it, you can tell easily that it’s the director of Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love. There’s the moody atmosphere, the step printing slow-mo. But it’s attempting to be Scorsese pastiche (it was apparently heavily inspired by Mean Streets, which I’ve never seen), with the main plot driver being its gangster protagonist trying to protect his reckless “little brother” protege. And then the other subplot is the gangster dude romancing his cousin(!) in a super-cheesy way. Like, they slow-mo kiss in a bus stop while a cover of “Take My Breath Away” plays over it, this is how cheesy we’re talking.

The subtlety and depth of character of, say, In the Mood for Love are replaced by cliche stereotypes standing in for actual characters. He’s the tough guy with a heart of… well, with a heart. She’s the naif from the countryside who falls for him in a completely inexplicable way. The “little brother” is a hot-headed schmuck who keeps fucking things up. It’s the kind of empty movie you make when you’ve mostly watched a lot of movies and not lived a lot of life.

But for all that, there is something here. Beyond a basic competence, it does evoke a languid mood (which is perhaps at odds with the violent content) and have a real style to it. If there are only flashes of brilliance in amongst the obligatory crime genre beats, well, there are still flashes of brilliance.

I don’t think anyone needs to rush out and watch this movie, maybe unless you’re a Wong Kar Wai completist or a superfan of Scorsese-style crime movies. But if you do watch it, you’re at least going to get something interesting out of the experience.