Running on Karma

Running on Karma looks like a commercial genre film, but then one wonders which genre it is. The film opens like a police film. The inexperienced policewoman Lee (charmingly played by Cecilia Cheung) raids a strip club in order to arrest the male strippers for indecency. Nonetheless, she enthusiastically encourages the strippers to take all their clothes off. Her favourite stripper is none other than Andy Lau, in a kind of comic bodybuilder’s muscle suit that makes him impressively big, but also gives him something of a chubby baby look. He is Big, who once gave martial arts training as a monk, but now has to earn his living in a dingy way. On reflection, the film could be a comic action film, but as soon as Big flees the nightclub and falls into the hands of the police, he sees mysterious visions. Big turns out to see karmas – turning the film towards a fantasy drama. As the story progresses Lee and Big become increasingly sympathetic towards each other – an aspect characteristic of most genres. Typical for To’s approach is that he mixes several genres together fluently and with bravura, as if the differences never existed. (GjZ)