GANGSTER (Malaysia – 2005)
Directed by: Bade Haji Azmi
Starring: Rosyam Nor, Umie Aida, Aqasha, Ako Mustapha

A nihilistic blood bath from Malaysia, GANGSTER is a slab of 1980’s Hong Kong criminal cool, carved off the bone and served hot. Seething with desperation, it was the number one movie in Malaysia last year by a landslide. But who knows why Malaysians flocked to a movie about illegal street racing, gutter-crawling losers ripping off their dealer and fleeing the country, nightclub assassinations and prostitutes with lethal pimps? Maybe every now and then you have to bathe your brain in bleakness to stay sane. Telling three overlapping stories about three desperate losers who’ve hit bottom and are running out of air, GANGSTER follows a hooker who plans to rip off her boyfriend, a food stall owner who’s borrowed too much money and doesn’t know how to pay it back, and an illegal car racer, as monomaniacal as Captain Ahab, who’s willing to turn pedestrians into grease spots if that means he can beat the top ranked driver. With three roles played by Malaysia’s DeNiro, Rosyam Nor, this flick takes every convention from film noir movies, throws them out on the streets of Kuala Lumpor, and picks them up the next morning after a grueling, hellish night on the town.