, the French director Olivier Assayas is best known to Chinese audiences for the title of "Maggie Cheung's ex-husband". In 2004, the film "Clean" directed by him brought Maggie Cheung to the throne of Cannes actress. In fact, this is not the only connection between Assayas and oriental films. The up-and-coming French director who emerged in the 1990s was a film critic of "Film Notes" magazine, and has both American thrillers and Hong Kong films. With profound moral interest and in-depth research, he also made the documentary "Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien" for Hou Hsiao-hsien. In the new work "Boarding Gate", Assayas once again revealed his oriental complex. Not only did he choose Hong Kong as one of the filming locations, but he also used two oriental faces, Lin Xilei and Wu Jialong, as the starring roles.
Assayas, who attended the 60th Cannes Film Festival with his new film, said: "The inspiration for 'Boarding Gate' came from a news report that the French banker Edouard Stern was shot in his Geneva apartment in Switzerland - a scene that seems to be related to ''Boarding Gate''. The plot in The Devil's Lover is exactly the same - so I started to conceive of this story about a woman struggling to escape murder and her past. The story consists of two parts, and for the first part of the story, any major western city can be Where it happened; Hong Kong is a place best suited to carry the kind of desperation and flight described in the second part of the story.”
Whether in terms of cast selection or filming locations, Assayas' new work expresses a certain international dimension. Lies and secrets of big companies, espionage, drugs, sex, and human emotions are intertwined... these elements that Assayas loves still appear in this film, and also make "Boarding Gate" It has a temperament that is in the same vein as "The Devil's Lover". The Italian actress Aisha Argento, who starred in "The Road to Love," plays the heroine Sandra, an Italian woman who has been trying to escape trouble but gets involved in bigger trouble. In the Paris part of the film, Sandra tries to sort out her relationship with Miles, a debt-ridden former banker who was once her lover and who she used to provide "special services" to his clients. Although these are all in the past, there is something inexplicably continuing before them. After Sandra switched to the import and export trading company jointly owned by Lester and Hugh, the filming location also turned to Hong Kong. Sandra is involved in drug dealing in the company behind Lester's back, and becomes Lester's lover behind Hugh. It wasn't until one day that Sandra discovered that Lester was actually a hitman and accepted the task of murdering Miles, that the bigger conspiracy behind it all surfaced...
Sandra's journey from Paris to Hong Kong Escape allows us to vaguely find the yearning for forgetfulness and redemption revealed by Maggie Cheung in "Cleaning". At the beginning of the film, Sandra's dream of owning a Beijing nightclub also revealed Assayas's profound oriental feelings and ultimate concern for the phenomenon of globalization. At the same time, Assayas also compiled a rather interesting cast list for "Boarding Gate": the heroine Aisha Argento comes from an Italian film family and is the daughter of the famous director Dario Argento; Michael Madsen, the male lead, also turned into a banker Miles in suits and ties, instead of his usual fierce killer appearance; and another Asian actor, Wu Jialong, was born in Hong Kong, a Chinese-British hybrid. , whose mother used to be Bruce Lee's hair stylist; of course, the biggest highlight is the addition of Kim Gordon, a member of the popular rock band Sonic Youth. Kim Gordon plays a spy chief in the film. There will be grim lines like "Here's passports and money - you're going to have a new identity", which is really exciting.
In the movie poster of "Boarding Gate", Aisha Argento's extremely seductive posture, the looming bottoms and the silent pistol in his hand seem to convey the message that those traditional "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" - sex Adding violent videos is no different. And obviously, what Assayas wants to express is by no means just these.
Trivia:
·The film was selected for the 60th Cannes Film Festival out of competition and was selected by the organizing committee to screen at midnight
·French director Assayas, after cooperating with Maggie Cheung in "Clean", is used again in this film Oriental faces.
One-line comment:
The series of images of betrayal, tracking and escape presented in "Boarding Gate" is not very good, the only striking thing is Olivier Assayas's always keen sense of color and his Stubborn preference for the focus picture. ——ScreenGrab.com is
sick, vulgar, empty... It seems to be a replica of the 2002 "Devil Lover" demonlover that discredited the Palme d'Or. --Variety.com
"Boarding Gate" shows the global dynamism of dirty business relationships and sexual relationships, just like what Assayas once tried to unearth in "The Devil's Lover." There is no doubt that these things have a stunning effect. —Screen Daily.com
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