OPENS JULY 30, CERT TBC, 108 MINS Last Life In The Universe starts like Harold And Maude, with a morose young man's farcical suicide attempt, and ends on an oblique grace note reminiscent of Hal Hartley. What happens in between is a shimmer of shifting genres and influences, part chaste romance, part ghost story, part culture-clash tale, even part mob drama when cult Japanese director Takashi Miike pops up as a colourfully outfitted gangster. The suicidal Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is a morose Bangkok librarian, trying to escape a shady past back in Japan. During another suicide attempt on a bridge, he sees a girl killed by a car and hooks up with her sister, Thai hooker Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak). He's an obsessive neatnik, she's a slob, but in a remote beach house the two draft a tentative romance, shot in a wash of liquid greens and blues by Wong Kar-Wai's cinematographer Chris Doyle. Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Monrak Transistor) here proves himself to be one of Asia's hottest new talents.
OPENS JULY 30, CERT TBC, 108 MINS
Last Life In The Universe starts like Harold And Maude, with a morose young man’s farcical suicide attempt, and ends on an oblique grace note reminiscent of Hal Hartley. What happens in between is a shimmer of shifting genres and influences, part chaste romance, part ghost story, part culture-clash tale, even part mob drama when cult Japanese director Takashi Miike pops up as a colourfully outfitted gangster.
The suicidal Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is a morose Bangkok librarian, trying to escape a shady past back in Japan. During another suicide attempt on a bridge, he sees a girl killed by a car and hooks up with her sister, Thai hooker Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak). He’s an obsessive neatnik, she’s a slob, but in a remote beach house the two draft a tentative romance, shot in a wash of liquid greens and blues by Wong Kar-Wai’s cinematographer Chris Doyle. Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Monrak Transistor) here proves himself to be one of Asia’s hottest new talents.
