PLASTIC CITY (DANGKOU) Homage to Xstream

Yu Lik-woi, the cinematographer-poet of postindustrial spaces (LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES) turns his unbridled visual imagination toward Brazil’s thick jungles and multicultural metropolises through the complex father-son relationship of aging Chinese gangster Yudo (the great Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong , recently seen in Johnny To’s THE EXILES) and Kirin, the young Japanese man he raised (Joponese heartthrob Joe Odogiri). Unfolding the many layers (and many languages) of its narrative at on alluring rhythm, PLASTIC CITY takes the viewer on a roller coaster journey of striking visual images (one idea per shot), including a bloody swordfight and massacre above Sao Paulo’s spectacular skyline Territorial feuds and racial rivalries between Chinese , Japanese and Brazilians from every fraction of the ethnic rainbow are enacted in impoverished slums, mean streets, industrial waterfronts, dork nightclubs and postmodern shopping malls against a colorful background of unemployed thugs, crafty gangsters turned businessmen, wise-crocking street kids, cynical longshoremen , corrupt politicians and sexy bar girls with feelings. The hearts of men are no less treacherous than the architectural maze of the city, the intoxicating heat of the jungle or the mesmerizing eyes of a white tiger that, as Indians say, will bring you death if gazed at for too long.