Jat go zi tau di daan sang (Too Many Ways to Be No. 1) (1997)

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John Woo protégé Wai Ka-fai follows up on his acclaimed Chow Yun-Fat vehicle Peace Hotel with this wild and woolly black comedy. With a nod to both Tarantino and Kieslowski, Wai fashions an inventive narrative based around ideas of fate and accident. The film follows Wong Ah-kau (Lau Ching-Wan), an… More John Woo protégé Wai Ka-fai follows up on his acclaimed Chow Yun-Fat vehicle Peace Hotel with this wild and woolly black comedy. With a nod to both Tarantino and Kieslowski, Wai fashions an inventive narrative based around ideas of fate and accident. The film follows Wong Ah-kau (Lau Ching-Wan), an inept gangland foot soldier with no self-esteem, no money, and no clue. One day, a friend of his offers him a stack of cash to deliver some cars to Mainland China for a big crime boss. It seems like easy money. Around the same time, he gets another offer to go to Taiwan and do a mob hit for an even bigger sum of dough. The film shows what might happen to Ah-kau if he were to go deliver the cars and then rewinds to show what might happen to him if he whacked someone in Taiwan. Over the years, this film has become something of a cult classic for mavens of Hong Kong cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi