EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED CONTEMPORARY URBAN CINEMA FROM HONG KONG'S MILKYWAY IMAGE PRODUCTIONS September 15-17, 2000 at the Anthology Film Archives, New York

TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1 (1997) Director: Wai Ka-fai Starring: Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng, Elvis Tsui, Carmen Lee 95 minutes, color, 35mm in Cantonese with English subtitles Showtimes: Friday, Sept 15 at 10:15pm Saturday, Sept 16 at 3:00pm "TO BE NO. 1 is about choice. Life is full of choices, some important, some not. Along these lines, things seem absurd." - Wai Ka-fai In the year prior to the release of TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1, the YOUNG AND DANGEROUS phenomena hit Hong Kong. A glamorized street epic portraying noble triads (the mongrel offspring of street gangs and the Mafia) and based on a popular comic book, the triads embraced it as a heroic validation of their lifestyle, while society watchdogs clucked their tongues and wagged their fingers to no avail: the movie spawned five sequels, three prequels, two all-female spin-offs, and ten imitation flicks. 1996 was the year the craze broke, the year the first Y&D movie was made, and the year in which two of its sequels and several of its prequels and spin-offs all hit the screens within six months. Cut to 1997 as writer/director (and Takeshi Kitano fan) Wai Ka-fai's deconstruction of the gangster film, TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1, explodes like a smart bomb all over the genre. Tearing up the conventions of the crime film from within, Wai's flick was originally considered a response to the Y&D phenomena, but in fact he'd been working on it for several years previously, and it shows. For his characters, being a gangster is just a job: they'll either get rich, or get killed. There aren't any heroes here. Lau Ching-wan plays Kau (translation: Dog), a dumb punk who hooks up with some friends for lunch on a boiling hot summer day. The plan: go to China and sell stolen cars, or go to Taiwan and become hitmen. Fate intervenes and Doggie gets to do both, with radical chronological consequences. The movie plays out three times, each replay revealing new aspects to the characters, sometimes they're snivelling wrecks, other times they're cold-eyed killers. Some die, some live, and some die and come back from the dead just so they can get killed all over again. RUN LOLA RUN a year before RUN LOLA RUN existed Wai's movie cuts loose from traditional linear narrative, constructing a Buddhist universe full of branching paths, multiple choices, and characters reincarnated again and again. It's a movie structured along the lines of a religion, according to Wai. Whatever. It's still a lot of fun. With black humor oozing out its pores, the flick takes a long view of the antics of the petty humans who populate it with the result that the simplest actions (a drink at a karaoke bar, a stiffed bill at a massage parlor) take on absurdist elements, breaking down the familiar into a surreal pageant. Produced on the run, Wai seems to have recruited his camerman from a lunatic asylum and the resultant film is shot in throbbing flourescent colors, backwards forwards and upside down by legendary DP Horace Wong, who shot all of John Woo's seminal crime movies ­ A BETTER TOMORROW 1, and 2, THE KILLER and HARDBOILED. Here his camera jumps, ducks, skitters and runs across ceilings, hiding out all over the place as it films these cheap hoods coming to their sticky ends, and putting their foots in it left and right. Deemed the most important film of 1997 by numerous Hong Kong critics, TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1 is the vaccine that'll have you giving any crime movie that comes your way a suspicious glance. Important? Maybe. A great big fun-biscuit? Absolutely. Read the Hong Kong critics rave about TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1, and then read some more reviews about this film.

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