An assassin haunted by the ghosts of his victims is the tantalizing conceit of The Laundryman (青田街一號), the feature debut by up-and-coming director Lee Chung (李中). There is a bit of everything in this black comedy — from a healthy dose of romance and suspense to abundant action. To top it all off, this boisterous genre concoction is made with sleek production values and an A-list cast.
The Laundryman sets out to win the audience’s heart. While the plot is sometimes uneven, Lee keeps his focus without overstretching the viewer’s credulity, offering a clever exploration on the perennial dichotomy of good and evil.
Joseph Chang (張孝全) plays the laundryman, a hitman who takes orders from A-gu, a femme fatale played by model-turned-actress Sonia Sui (隋棠). By day, A-gu runs a dry-cleaning store. At night, the laundryman brings his completed assignment back to the shop, processes it and washes it out.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Life for the laundryman revolves around killing and removing bodies. Things follow an orderly routine except for the fact that every day when the man returns home, a group of ghosts wait for him in his claustrophobic apartment. Scared and baffled, he seeks help from Lin Hsiang (Wan Qian, 萬茜), a spirit medium who can communicate with ghosts.
As you can image, the ghosts are the laundryman’s victims, and now they want to know who wanted them dead and why. As the assassin and the medium try to search out the clients, dark secrets emerge, leading to a past that involves A-gu, her psychiatric experiments and her subjects.
The Laundryman works with a number of clever ideas. At the center of the film is the laundry shop, where all the blemishes, filth and troubles in life can be washed away. It tackles the subject of morality, as the assassin learns that he has the freedom to make what he believes to be the right choices.
Photo courtesy of Activator Marketing Company
Yao Hung-i’s (姚宏易) cinematography further imbues the tale with expressive exuberance. The space inhabited by the characters is fantastic, kaleidoscopic and yet tinged with a sense of closeness that offers no escape.
But the film is never intended to reach the level of poignancy. Chen Yu-hsun (陳玉勳),who co-wrote the script with Lee Chung, sprinkles the story with his signature sense of humor.
Also with Chen’s input, it comes as no surprise that the film is lively with vividly idiosyncratic characters. Joseph Chang invests in his role a peculiar mixture of vacant calmness and savage innocence, which recalls his performance in Chung Mong-hong’s (鍾孟宏) Soul (失魂) as a man who loses his soul.
Performances by the female leads are equally appealing. Chinese actress Wan shows off a sassy side with a measured dose of playfulness. Meanwhile, Sui does a good job as the embodiment of evil, tempting people to act on their malicious impulses and hateful thoughts.
Supporting actors are mostly strong, including Michael Chang (張少懷), Kao Meng-chieh (高盟傑) and Peggy Tseng (曾珮瑜). In particular, the cameo appearance of producer Lee Lieh (李烈), who co-produces the film, as a beheaded ghost, recalls director Chen’s 2011 short Hippocamp Hair Salon (海馬洗頭), a mystery/black comedy starring Lee Lie and director Ko I-chen (柯一正).
Those curious about the Chinese title of the film, which translates as 1, Qingtian Street (青田街一號), will find the answer in the movie’s climax.
A vaccine to fight dementia? It turns out there may already be one — shots that prevent painful shingles also appear to protect aging brains. A new study found shingles vaccination cut older adults’ risk of developing dementia over the next seven years by 20 percent. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is part of growing understanding about how many factors influence brain health as we age — and what we can do about it. “It’s a very robust finding,” said lead researcher Pascal Geldsetzer of Stanford University. And “women seem to benefit more,” important as they’re at higher risk of
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had