Kiss Me So Long I Can’t Breathe

A hip variation on the genre of the gangster-hitman film that, as becomes apparent here, lends itself for endless variations and deconstruction. The Japanese-born Korean Kim Taegwan wanted to mix influences from Hong Kong, Korean and Japanese cinema into a new genre within Asian film. It remains to be seen whether he succeeded, but it is clear that he has made a fluent, visually virtuoso and humorous film in a genre that may not be new, but is filled with vitality. The film revolves around three characters who all have their own version of the same event (a narrative strategy that is known in film history as the Rashomon model). The lonely hitman Yamazaki is alone in a room. He has to murder a Yakuza boss from a rival gang next day. He is very nervous and rings a call-girl as distraction. Against the rules of his profession, he tells the young prostitute Yurika who he is going to kill next day. Against the rules of her profession she asks him if they can meet again. When Yurika next day turns out to have the intended victim as customer, and Yamazaki is standing by the door with his pistol, Kim Taegwan can draw on a large amount of material and a large number of angles to show events from a wide range of perspectives, jumping back and forth in time. (GjZ)