TIFF 08: Plastic City

I’d gone into Monday night’s screening of Plastic City, knowing that the filmmaker was going to re-cut the film. Apparently the showing at Venice made some territories balk at picking up the title, and let me say, it definitely needs some work. DOP for most of Jia Zhang-ke’s work, there are some gorgeous visual transitions and Yu Lik-wai shows an interesting perspective of an Asian society that is not concentrated in China, but in Brazil. Tensionless, aggravatingly slow, this describes the downfall of an organization via the point of view of an old tiger who can’t keep with the times and his son, who doesn’t have what it takes to continue the mafia stranglehold. The lush colors don’t do much for this poetic rendition of what occurs in the favelas, the jungles, and fake garment industry sector. Jet-lagged actor (Anthony Wong) and director were on end to present the film. a non-glowing review should be up shortly.