Runaway Pistol (Hong Kong, 2002)
Directed by: Lam Wah-chuen

Starring: Wilson Yip, Crystal Lui, Wong Chun-chun, Kenneth Bi


Some people think “Hong Kong movie” means “heroic action movie.” RUNAWAY PISTOL is a bullet in the face to that idea. Directed by Fruit Chan¹s cinematographer, Lam Wah-chuen, this is a convention-defying, synapse-frying, anti-gun, anti-humanity, anti-everything flick that follows a hapless handgun from one back-against-the-wall owner to another across Hong Kong¹s blasted cityscape. 

Narrated by a lost and lonely handgun, the movie whip pans across a country in economic crisis, and moments of sudden, neon-smeared beauty bloom up like flowers in a graveyard. It¹s a jet black journey into human nature with a cynical world view and a toxic sense of humor that carbonizes the very air itself. 



Made for about $250,000 and featuring a cast crammed to bursting with Hong Kong¹s smartest directors, RUNAWAY PISTOL has a wicked sense of humor, and a low amount of optimism about the human condition attitudes that have caused it to be both celebrated and condemned by critics. The Hong Kong Film Critics Association chose it as a notable film of 2002, other critics have called it “offensive” and “disgusting.” 

Coming to a city that has seen more than its share of violence in recent years, in a world that is full of guns and death, RUNAWAY PISTOL is a welcome, hard-edged, anti-violence movie that leaves vapid “Give Peace a Chance” stupidity back in the ‘60s while savaging those who deal death as the woman-hating, soul-dead, greedy cowards that they are. Fully armed with vengeful dogs, nude weatherwomen, foot jobs, and a dejected pistol that just can¹t stop bemoaning its fate, this is one of the bleakest and bravest independent movies of the year.