PLASTIC CITY (Hong Kong, 2008)
Directed by: Yu Lik-wai
Starring: Anthony Wong, Joe Odagiri

To step into the mildewed day-glo world of PLASTIC CITY is to witness globalization in hemorrhage.  Deep in the palpitating heart of Brazil, the Liberdade district is home to a legion of distaff Asian expatriates as well as virtually every other culture under the sun, all adrift in a neverending junk bazaar filled with knock-offs and counterfeit merchandise as far as the eye can see.  At the top of the landfill sits Yuda (the legendary Anthony Wong, INFERNAL AFFAIRS) and his foster son Kirin (Japanese superstar Joe Odagiri), robber barons of a crazy-quilt kingdom.  Yuda and Kirin love each other with fierce loyalty, yet in their own way, each is looking is to get out ("We're all slaves," Kirin tells a co-worker with resigned nonchalance). 

When a fancy dan from out of town calling himself "Mr. Taiwan" strolls into the district and U.S. law enforcement begins to put pressure on the counterfeit trade, everything the duo has worked for is threatened, and pretty soon a machete-wielding Yuda is having jungle flashbacks in his own backyard and setting his prize boat ablaze, while Kirin is leading a ragtag army of street kids into a CGI-splashed, Takashi Miike-esque samurai showdown on an elevated platform just beyond the city limits.  As the situation in Liberdade escalates, Yuda is imprisoned and Kirin hits the streets as a wandering bum, leading to a tripped-out jungle finale that's laced with a sprinkle of AGUIRRE-era Werner Herzog and a pinch of APOCALYPSE NOW.

Crime thriller, family drama, head trip, travelogue; PLASTIC CITY is all of these things, all at once, with plenty more under the hood or stocked up in the back.  The latest directorial effort from renowned cinematographer Yu Lik-wai (who previously lensed LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, and lit Jia Zhangke's STILL LIFE and 24 CITY), the film shoots for the moon and several planets beyond, lacking nothing in ambition or style.  Yu drenches every sweat-dappled frame in saturated colors, rotting neons and sepias which create a stunningly kaleidoscopic view of a thoroughly used back-door world, where shadowy underpasses and faded brand names replace street signs and stoplights.  The boiler-plate elements of your standard Asian mob movie are merely a skeletal framework for the psycho-odysseys Yu puts his characters through - Anthony Wong's patriarch is no stock father figure, but rather a melancholy old man seething with barely contained rage, Yuda's fury bubbling just beneath the surface as a world he's become supremely tired of falls apart without his permission.  As Kirin, Joe Odagiri defies stereotyping, going from roguish renegade to little orphan lost to 99-cent Oedipus when he tries to romance Daddy's girl, only to find himself broken and alone, a crazy hobo without an identity beyond that which his lifestyle gave to him. 

An international Hong Kong-Brazillian production, PLASTIC CITY isn't just a film to be watched, but breathed, tasted, smelled - the curry, the huevos, the oil, the urine in the gutters, the jungle.  With intoxicating visuals and attitude to spare, it's ambitious as hell and makes no apologies if you don't get it.  Just remember to heed Yuda's advice to Kirin, when they reunite in the least likely place on Earth: Don't stare too long at the white tiger, or it will destroy you.