Starlit High Noon (Mahiru no hoshizora) (2005)

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In writer/director Yosuke Nakagawa's third feature, Starlit High Noon, (Wang Leehom) plays Lian Song, a hitman from Taipei who hides out in Okinawa between jobs. After a particularly difficult assignment, he finds himself questioning his place in the world while "decompressing" in… More In writer/director Yosuke Nakagawa's third feature, Starlit High Noon, (Wang Leehom) plays Lian Song, a hitman from Taipei who hides out in Okinawa between jobs. After a particularly difficult assignment, he finds himself questioning his place in the world while "decompressing" in Japan. He falls into his routine. Lian Song enjoys cooking his own gourmet meals, swimming at the local pool (where a pretty staff worker harbors a secret crush on him), and doing his laundry at the same laundromat at the same time every Friday night, when he knows he'll run into the quiet stranger he dreams about. She turns out to be Yukiko (Kyoka Suzuki of Zebraman, playing the same character played by Haru Kawazu in Nakagawa's previous film, Departure). Lian Song follows Yukiko and finds out she works in a kitchen preparing bento boxes. He occasionally buys a bento box, and finds them inedible, but when he approaches Yukiko at her job and asks about buying one, she gives him one, and this bento box turns out to be strangely delicious. Meanwhile, back in Taipei, the hitman's employers have run into trouble with a rival gang whose boss Lian Song executed. The rivals have apparently taken control of the local police department. They offer a truce, but only if Lian Song's bosses turn him over to them. Starlit High Noon was selected by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center for inclusion in the 2005 edition of New Directors/New Films. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi