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一見鍾情 (2000)
Sausalito


Reviewed by: JohnR
Date: 03/07/2006
Summary: A Virtual Love Story

Meaning there's no substance. It's like a mountain lake wallpaper on your computer screen: it's beautiful, but no one's ever been there and no one ever will.

Maggie Cheung is gorgeous and filmed well; the only reason to see this movie, really. I did appreciate that it was a movie for adults, though.

There are a lot of well-written reviews here and I agree with them all in terms of the negatives and positives pointed out. I only differ on the final grade. I think it's worth watching once for Maggie; just don't expect "Comrades."

Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: ewaffle
Date: 11/23/2005
Summary: Maggie Cheung is a terrible thing to waste.

Sequels are almost always a problem. Very occasionally they are artistically equal to or even superior to the original movie—for example, “Aliens”, “Godfather Part II” or “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”. Generally they are made only because the first movie was a hit and the producers hope to capitalize on the good reviews and ticket sales that it generated. What most sequels show is that no one really knows why movies work, why they appeal to an audience or what makes people decide to spend Saturday night at the cinema instead of the fifty other things they could be doing. In other words, Hollywood doesn’t have a clue, which is not really shocking news.

Hong Kong filmmakers have a much better track record with squeals—they did them almost as a matter of course in the 1980s and 1990s—but even they can run into real problems when trying to recapture the magic of an artistically and financially successful movie. “Sausalito” is an example of this. While not a sequel as such—it isn’t “Comrades, Almost a Love Story II”—it is in the same way that other movies that have the same cast, director and writers. “Pat and Mike” and “Adam’s Rib” starred Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, were directed by George Cukor and were written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. More recently, “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail” starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and were written and directed by Nora Ephron. Each set of movies were romantic comedies with very serious sides to them in which the lead characters suffer through a number of trials and false starts until they realize that they were made for one another. In these cases the producers didn’t try to recreate the plots and settings of the original movies but to capture the mood and themes that made the first movies popular and to do so with the same personnel. It worked in those cases. It did not in the case of “Sausalito”.

At first I wanted to view “Sausalito” as a thing in itself, independent of “Comrades Almost a Love Story” which was quite difficult—more than difficult, it was impossible. However, judged on its own, “Sausalito” is a terrible movie with characters that don’t develop in the least, a paper-thin and very dull plot with almost no sustained conflict, unreal situations that are more annoying than interesting and outrageously hackneyed cinematography. But when compared with “Comrades” it is shockingly inept.

The characters are the same at the end of the movie as at the beginning, except that they have a lot more money. None of them has learned anything nor show any indication that they will in the future. They are not people that one would care to know. The climax is foreordained from the start of the movie—which is generally the case in romantic comedies, but not as obvious. Neither Mike nor Ellen has any alternative other than ending up in each other’s arms, happily ever after. The incomparable Maggie Cheung is Ellen, a cab driver in San Francisco, where the tips must be really great since she lives in a huge duplex apartment in what looks to be a very pricey part of town. She has a son who, in the matter of children of single parents in films, is wise beyond his years. She has a group of friends that cut across gender, class and racial lines. She is loved and trusted by everyone she knows, has no enemies and is even talented as a painter—and perhaps most unbelievably, has a huge black wall to use as a canvas, a wall that is not defaced, painted over or tagged. Leon Lai is Mike, the dot-com millionaire to be. He cuts a swath through the available women of San Francisco, has a huge office with a basketball goal but almost no computer equipment and whose biggest decision is whether to let the banks or the venture capitalists make him rich.

The various complications that arise along the way for these characters are invariably brought on by themselves. After developing his search engine to the extent that there is real interest his start-up by those who fund such ventures, Mike decides he doesn’t want to sell—which is the only way to cash in at this point and also the only way to repay the debt that start-ups like his always incur. And he doesn’t only elect to turn down the millions that are offered to him—the only way he could continue to fund his company—but does so in a way that is sure to deeply alienate a leading venture capital firm, one which is headed by Virginia Chow, placidly played by Valerie Chow. Ellen is offered everything she thinks she wants—love, commitment, security, a ton of money—by Mike but she dithers, sulks and agonizes until he is sick of her—as is the audience. Toward the end of the movie we wouldn’t mind if Mike threw himself into the sea and Ellen hopped on the next plane to Hong Kong.

The writers and director lost control of the material so completely that it took a deus ex machina in the form of a phone call from Bill Gates to rescue Mike and his partner Bob (and the movie itself) from collapse. Eric Kot who played Bob is one of the few high points of the movie. The cinematography was almost grotesque in its simplemindedness. There were enough scene setting shots of landmarks of the Bay area for a tourist bureau commercial. The camera generally kept a respectful and dull distance from the characters, which, in this case, is insane. One doesn’t hire Maggie Cheung for a role and then not fill the screen with close-ups of her whenever possible.

But it is in inevitable comparison with “Comrades” that makes “Sausalito” look amateurish and crude. One example is sex between the main characters. In “Comrades” it took a long time, a very funny mutual switching of coats and a lot of very human false starts before they wound up in bed. It was very much like that way that two lonely and reticent people decide to sleep together. In “Sausalito” they do it in the back of Ellen’s cab for no particular reason. Outrageously enough, Ellen is worried that she is pregnant after making love with Mike once or twice—while it allowed a few cheap jokes and a bit of unsuspenseful suspense (only to be dropped completely as a plot point) the entire situation was much too unbelievable. This was set in San Francisco in the year 2000, which was about 17 years after HIV/AIDS became a reality there. While unprotected sex with strangers may still occur, it strains credibility to have it a major part of the action of a movie.

One aspect that made “Comrades” such a wonderful movie was that there was real and honestly felt concern that Lai Siu Gwan and Lee Kiu might miss connecting with each other—either physically or emotionally. That concern led to some terrific scenes which don’t need recounting here. Since there was only one way to go in “Sausalito”, there wasn't any conflict to captivate the audience—or even interest it. Lee Kiu went from being a small time capitalist to a massage parlor girl to a gangster’s consort to a barely legal immigrant in the U.S. She was scared, confident, hopeless, satisfied and sexy at different times—occasionally all of them in the same scene. Ellen, on the other hand, went from cab driver to girlfriend. Her emotional range was grumpy to sluggish.

The producers of “Sausalito” accomplished one thing that I didn’t think would be possible. They made a movie starring Maggie Cheung that I don’t want to see a second time and think that the first was a waste. Quite amazing.

Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: Kyashan
Date: 06/05/2002
Summary: Pretty... just pretty

I liked this movie but not so much because this is like classical american drama movies. A story that I already heared, but however is a good movie with a good direction by Andrew Lau.


Reviewed by: annelam
Date: 05/01/2002

It would have been a fair love story if the main actors weren't Leon Lai and Maggie Chueng. And if you've seen and really liked their previous effort -'Comrades-Almost A Love Story', you'd be downright disappointed. Sausalito tries to be a copy of 'Comrades' but with more comercial value to attract the mass viewers but falls flat for it makes the movie only half inspiring. Certain plots were 'just' inserted and didn't really bring much meaning to the core story. Eric Kot is totally wasted here for he's deliberately put inside the show to provide the comical aspect but you can sense that his presence is not really that necessary. Also, the problem which was presented in the movie wasn't really dealt with in the end. Of course the two main actors ended happily ever after but I feel the problem that got the two broken off wasn't really solved. To make it worse, in the middle of the movie, you'll hear someone trying desperately to sing in English but ends up killing the mood of that particular scene instead. Need I tell you who he is? Anyway, if you're not a picky person like me, you'd find it enjoyable but because I already fell in love with 'Comrades', this movie " Love at first sight" won't really be my love at first sight! 5/10


Reviewed by: runo_jp
Date: 06/14/2001
Summary: sausalito

“Comrades, almost a love story”, is such a perfect movie that coming up with something to the same level should be a miracle. “Sausalito” is everything “Comrades” is not. I don’t want to say that both Leon Lai and Maggie Cheung had some urgent bills to pay, but the story itself, the characterization, and the background, everything is so WRONG, you wonder how they could film this without knowing there were problems.
Let’s not start with Maggie Cheung’s missing shoe…
2/10


Reviewed by: Yellow Hammer
Date: 05/10/2001
Summary: the movie doesn't add up

In short, this was a film that just didn't add up. Was there a motif for the movie, or was it a movie simply to show the scenery of SF, throw out a few Internet terms and show how easy it is to get laid in SF? No chemistry at all between Mike (Leon Lai) and Ellen (Maggie Cheung), no sense of romantic buildup (they made love a few minutes after meeting each other), no sense of compassion or feelings for either of them. Imagine leaving a 10 year old boy at home while going out every night. Imagine a Internet wonderboy going out to bars every night looking for cheap dates. Not much of the movie made much sense. And if this movie takes place in the U.S., at least find some actors who speak better English than Leon and Eric Kot. And just what was Suki Kwan's purpose in the movie?

This movie was made to be someone esoteric, but there just isn't the flow or substance to it to be considered a good movie.


Reviewed by: David Harris
Date: 04/18/2001

StarEast's "Sausalito" is Maggie Cheung's first Hong Kong film in three years - the last being "The Soong Sisters" - which is reason enough to review it but it also sees her pair with Leon Lai for the second time (they made "Comrades - Almost A Love Story" in 1996). Throw in action specialist Andrew Lau as director and Wong Jing as producer and you have an potentially intriguing film brewing. Shot on location in the US (San Francisco) the story concerns two very different characters - Mike (Leon Lai) is a dotcom businessman in the middle of fraught takeover discussions, struggling for inspiration and on the verge of burnout whilst Ellen (Maggie Cheung) is a single mother who drives a cab by day and looks after her son Scott (Scott Leung) by night.

"Sausalito" is part drama, part romance and part comedy and is shot in a style that is far from typical Hong Kong. If nothing else it shows that Andrew "Legend Of Speed" Lau is more than capable of directing non-action material (which is a fact that surely increases the likelihood of him getting an offer to work in the US). Co-starring as Mike's business partner Bob is Eric Kot ("Juliet In Love") who is pretty much a new face to me but is proving to be an impressive performer who is capable of handling drama and comedy with equal deftness. We also get to see a virtually unrecognisable Richard "My Lucky Stars" Ng (he was the little guy with the moustache) as Mike's gay landlord - you have to give the guy a break though as the those movies are nearly twenty years old and he wasn't that young then!

The story of Mike and Ellen meeting and falling in and out and back in love is well scripted as is the high stakes business backdrop and perhaps predictably Maggie Cheung pretty much acts everyone else off the screen although Richard Ng is the big surprise as he reveals hitherto untapped dramatic ability and the aforementioned Eric Kot is also a standout. Leon Lai is rapidly maturing as an actor and in a few years time it wouldn't surprise me to see some truly great performances from him (the difference between "Comrades..." and "Sausalito" in terms of his performance is significant). In case you're wondering about the significance of the film's title it is the name of the city where Ellen dreams of living and come the end of the film is living.
Another significant element of the film is the strong yet subtle use of music. It really helps to heighten the moods in the film and highlights the actors and actresses performances as does the directorial job done by Andrew Lau which is very distinctive and like I said before notably different from the archetypal Hong Kong style - it is very hard to make any comparisons even broad ones but he has done a job that proves his versatility. An entertaining romantic film and a more than welcome return to Hong Kong screens for Maggie Cheung.


Reviewed by: Paul Fonoroff
Date: 11/23/2000

Three and a half years after the superlative Comrades, Almost a Love Story, Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Leon Lai Ming have finally been reteamed. The result is above average for Cantonese cinema but nowhere in the same league as their previous effort. Sausalito is a departure from the usually youth-obsessed Hong Kong movie scene in that its romance centers on two members of the thirtysomething set. In terms of content, it couldn’t be further from director/cinematographer Andrew Lau Wai-keung’s special effects-laden comic book style blockbusters Stormriders and A Man Called Hero.

The San Francisco-based romance cannot be faulted for its sunny California look, thanks in large part to Lau’s cinematography (assisted by Tang Hon-bong). The art direction, credited to Patrick Ludden, is of a high standard, and the choice of locations excellent. The suburban Sausalito mansion bought by budding internet tycoon Mike (Leon Lai) is nothing short of spectacular and will elicit gasps and sighs from Hong Kong urban dwellers. Where the movie fails in its depiction of a mature love story and that, after all, is what Sausalito (whose Chinese title means “Love at First Sight”) is all about.

The heart of the problem is that a convincing case is never made for Mike’s head-over-heels adoration for Ellen (Maggie Cheung). He is a handsome, carefree, womanizing 33-year-old on the verge of selling his internet business to Bill Gates. She is a 35-year-old divorcee with a ten-year-old son (Scott Leong) who supports herself by driving a taxicab. He can have any woman he wants—after all, he is super idol Leon Lai, and throughout the movie neither he nor the audience is allowed to forget it. I’m not saying Mike wouldn’t want Ellen, but Sausalito never shows just what makes her so special that he would forsake all others. At one point even she asks him, “Why do you choose me?” It is a question never satisfactorily answered.

What makes Ellen truly unique is her life’s plethora of implausible elements. The filmmakers, from the director to executive producer Wong Jing and scriptwriter Chan Sup-sam, want to have it all ways. Ellen is a working mother, yet lives in a beautiful house that wouldn’t be out of place in Better Homes & Gardens. She is a loving, hands-on mom, yet spends multiple nights in Mike’s bed and away from her son. She has a job that is tiring and time-consuming, yet has the energy to paint murals. In other words, Ellen is the kind of superwoman that can only exist on the silver screen. Maggie Cheung gives an excellent performance, but even she cannot overcome Sausalito’s incongruities.

Take the fight scene, in which Ellen calls on her fellow cabbies to save Mike from what she believes to be triad gangsters. Her little boy joins the fracas and shows his kung-fu prowess, which is fair enough in a typical Hong Kong action movie. But in a love story which is trying to establish Ellen’s credentials as a good mother, it seems totally out of character that she would allow her “baby” to place himself in mortal danger. As it turns out, the “gangsters” are Mike’s best friend Bob (Eric Kot Man-fai) and other colleagues. But Ellen doesn’t learn that till after the fight is over.

Bob and Ellen’s best friend, Tina (Suki Kwan Sau-mei) are never allowed to do more than serve an obvious expository or comic relief purpose. Valerie Chow Ka-ling, long absent from Hong Kong screens, makes an enjoyable cameo as a corporate bitch who uses Mike and tosses him to the wolves. The gay sexual identities of certain characters, including Mike’s landlord/surrogate uncle Robert (Richard Ng Yue-hon), are handled in a stereotyped but relatively non-homophobic manner. The film is set in San Francisco, after all, and Robert’s Castro Street restaurant is another example of the movie’s good choice of locations.

One of Wong Jing’s greatest virtues is the timeliness of his productions. This one was shot just over a month ago, and the dialogue is peppered with references to the latest internet stock deals and includes an Easter party scene tailor-made for its holiday release. There is also a streak of blatant “commerciality” that is also amusing, with Ellen’s taxi prominently sporting the logo for one of Sausalito’s sponsors, Star East. But despite Sausalito’s star power, it lacks the sort of sparkle that makes audiences leave the theatre starry-eyed.

This review is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.


Reviewed by: meixner
Date: 08/30/2000
Summary: Self indulgent pap

An Internet billionaire falls in love with a San Francisco taxi driver with a young son and a dream of living in Sauasalito.

Staggeringly obnoxious travails of the ridiculously wealthy set in a fantasyland San Francisco of truly epic proportions. This attempt to recreate the magic of "Comrades: Almost a Love Story" falls flat in so many different ways dramatically that it is hard to single out any single one, but probably the first prize must go to the wretched script. Other than that it is pretty to look at, and all the technical aspects are as excellent as one would expect from a first class production.


Reviewed by: magic-8
Date: 08/16/2000
Summary: Limp Domestic Drama

Before viewing "Sausalito," I thought Andrew Lau would be moving into another dimension beyond his typical cliched, one-dimensional, comicbook character cutouts. I was wrong. Lau's direction, and weak script by Chan Sap Sam, produced a limp domestic drama, featuring the wasted talents of Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai. The two leads did their best with the limited material, but they couldn't save this film. Lau was a cintematographer and his neglect in not using the California Bay Area's scenic vistas to enhance this love story was inexcusable. Why shoot on location if not to take advantage of the environment?

The plot of having taxi driver Maggie fall in love with internet dot commer Leon was a good idea, but the contrived situations and the lack of emotions and tension in the relationship was apparent. The affair leading to a falling out and then reconciliation was a plotline that has been done time and again. When Valerie Chow is introduced as the jealous wedge, she appears and then disappears. It would have created more drama to keep Valerie as part of a love triangle to add some zest to the movie. Instead of injecting some life and vitality to the relationship, Lau's pedestrian handling of the film left me wanting. Unlike Wilson Yip's "Juliet In Love," where Yip added a twist to an oft told love story, Lau didn't do his homework. There is nothing in this film that makes it urgent or fresh. What we get is more like day old bread.


Reviewed by: MilesC
Date: 08/05/2000
Summary: Words cannot convey how stupid this movie is.

I've suspected it for quite some time, and this movie clinches it: "Andrew Lau" is actually a computer program. Technically, "he" does fine, as you would expect; as far as understanding basic plot conventions (rule #1: a story must have conflict) and human emotions, (I've never seen a film of his in which "love" didn't merely consist of a man and a woman seeing each other, chatting briefly, and then having sex) though, I'm afraid he needs some improvements before he can go on the market.

Tell me, what is the point of a love story in which the two involved sleep with each other in the first twenty minutes, the conflicts between them are lesser than those of many married couples, and the one true problem is introduced artificially around the 75th minute, only to be moped over once or twice and then resolved via a quick musical montage twenty minutes later? That's how shallow this piece of garbage is. As for the actors, they do fine with what little they're given, and it is very little indeed; Maggie is a woman. She is divorced. She has a son. Leon is a man. He is in the .com biz. He's sort of a jerk, but not enough to really do anything for the movie. Most of the characters besides Leon and Maggie are merely present for L&M to spill their guts to so that Andrew Lau v1.0 can avoid having to express anything nonverbally.

I prefer Hong Kong movies to Hollywood because they generally have a certain feeling of sincerity that glossy Hollywood films tend to lack. Andrew Lau, however, is just about the most phoney, unemotional and impersonal filmmaker I've ever seen. While his other films have managed to fool a lot of people with flashy visuals and violence, this attempt at straight romance is pathetically inept. Robo-Lau is the only HK filmmaker whose move to Hollywood I would celebrate.


Reviewed by: Chuma
Date: 07/12/2000
Summary: A dot com love story?

It sounds hard to believe but this is actually what this movie
is about. It actually does manage to carry this out with some
credibility.

Ellen (Maggie Cheung) is a taxi driver in San Fransico, but is also
an artist who dreams of living in the rich suburb of the city called
Sausalito. She also has a ten year old son, who is looked after by
her friends at the taxi company, and who is involved in one of the
funniest scenes when he finds something 'exciting' in his Uncle's taxi.

Mike is an up and coming dot com tycoon, who came to fame
in the US when he came from Hong Kong and wrote his first Search Engine
while living in a warehouse appartment in Chinatown. His company is
being courted for a multi-billion dollar takeover as part of a finance deal,
but he doesn't have any inspirational ideas and feels burnt out.

When Ellen goes out to bring home her friend Tina, who has been calling her
all night from the nightclub to come out with her, Mike ropes her into a
demonstration to prove that all Chinese women as psychic, which goes successfully and afterwards Ellen finds Mike pissing on her mural that she has painted and they end up in the back of her taxi near the waterfront. After this, the story follows what you would expect from a romantic comedy, with a few funny twists.

I really liked this movie, even though I wouldn't normally go to anything like this. Maggie Cheung is delightful in her role as Ellen (although I would probably think she was in any film she was in) and there are also some funny performances from some
very familar faces.

The internet and dot com situations of this movie actually seem credible for once, which is a nice change and they don't just seem like an afterthought as in some movies of this ilk. Special mention must go to the scene where Mike and his cousin get a call from 'Bill Gate' after their internet scheme for an online nation-state
called 'Nirvana City' is launched.

I would recommend this movie to people who want to take their girlfriends for a night out, or who don't want the usual Hong Kong action titles, even Tom, a bloke who I met just before I went into the movie and who felt he had to 'explain' everything to me because I was just an Australian and wouldn't know what was going on, liked it.


Rating : dot.com stock up 100 points (8/10)


Reviewed by: shelly
Date: 05/27/2000
Summary: Maggie Cheung shines in San Francisco

The plot looks to the standard modern romance genre. Mike (Leon Lai), wealthy thirty-something San Franciscan internet designer and search engine designer, meets Ellen (Maggie Cheung), a thirty-something divorcee, mother, cab driver, and urban artist (she's working on a large wall mural in the South of Mission district of San Francisco). After meeting an a bar, the unlikely couple sleep together (in Ellen's cab, rather friskily, at first), fall in love, overcoming their differences and incompatibilities. They thereupon discover that said differences return to drive them apart. But their "love at first sight" (the meaning of the film's Chinese title Yi jian zhong qing) reasserts itself, with the help of a minor San Francisco earthquake.

At first glance, it's a real pleasure to see a Hong Kong mainstream film and potential hit that is not only gorgeously photographed and beautifully edited, but is also a film about grown-ups, for grown-ups. And it's good to see Maggie Cheung starring in anything that shows her off to her full advantage.

Cheung has developed in the '90s into a great actress, someone who is always fascinating to watch. When she's in full flight, I don't really want anyone getting in the way. This time, full marks to Leon Lai: he is not an obstacle as an actor (unlike his work in Comrades Almost a Love Story, where he seemed to be holding Cheung back draining energy from every scene that they shared). Most of the time, I wasn't even thinking "this is Leon, uber-pop-star": he actually seemed capable of disappearing into
his character, the amiably energetic (if rather self-absorbed) Mike, internet concept designer extraordinaire. This is the best, most successfully sustained acting work of his career to date.

Unfortunately, what a non-entity of a character Mike is: nothing more than a version of that staple of the modern romance genre, the narcissistic male as never-grown-up boy. What, indeed, could Ellen possibly see in him, besides an available sexual outlet, that makes her want to stay with him? And that, more unbelievably, makes her want to go back to him after he treats her miserably? Mike doesn't show any signs of changing or growing. He just becomes much richer. So, Ellen will go back for more of the same crappy treatment because, is it merely generic romantic love that's taken over her life? This just pushes genre romance to its banal limit.

The problem is that Sausalito is a standard male oedipal narcissistic fantasy piece, wherein Mike as man/boy finds his ideal missing mother figure (which is why Ellen has to be seen with a child, who's then virtually forgotten by the script until the film's end); falls in love with said mother, loses her, and finally wins back her love and infinite forgiveness. Ellen is allowed to be nurturing and unconditionally forgiving, to a boy/man who can't face maturity. Yawn.

On the plus side -- and this is a giant plus -- Andrew Lau (as both director and cinematographer) certainly knows how to shoot Cheung, with a skillfully varied array of off-centred close-ups, canted framings, and mixes of natural and artificial light. Not only that, but he knows how to cut, manipulate, and edit shots with an infectious rhythm.

Admire for example the scene of Ellen and Mike in front of the Castro Theatre: it looks new, it feels fresh, startling yet comfortably innovative at the same time: a perfect little instance of commercial filmmaking with "art film" values. Sequences like these add up to an ode to Cheung's beauty, to the perfection of her screen-image. So Sausalito the film idealizes her as a figure of female beauty. Just as Mike sees Ellen, too, as a particular and limited type of feminine ideal. Does Lau, then, deploy all the filmmaking skills at his disposal just to implicate us, the audience, in Mike's childlike woman-worshipping? One has to wonder.

It would be easy to continue enumerating the Sausalito's flaws: its uncritical worship of money, for example, or its clunky, cloyingly over-present musical score. But in order to capture how it actually felt to watch the film, I have to return to Maggie Cheung. I enjoyed sitting in the theatre watching the movie -- as opposed to trying to think about it later -- just for the sheer beauty of Cheung on the screen, for her ability to show a character with conflicting, ambivalent feelings, her skill at taking us directly to Ellen's heart and elicit our sympathy, no matter how thinly the character may have been written. In a celebration of Maggie-montage made up of lingering long shots and close-ups: a few freshly-framed, beautifully-positioned, canted-camera, off-centre close-ups that flash white, fade to black, stutter, slow down, speed up, briefly freeze, then softly fade again.

Reviewer Score: 8