Mr.
Long: Written and directed by Sabu. Starring:
Chen Chang, Runyin Bai, Yiti Yao, Sho Aoyagi, Masashi Arifuku. Running
Time: 128 minutes.
Rating:
3.5/4
Perhaps
the best way I could describe the character of Mr. Long is this; imagine if
John Wick were Taiwanese, and could cook?
I know, it sounds a bit trite already to compare unstoppable hitmen characters
to one of the best original action figures of the 2010s, but it really does fit
here. Mr. Long is impossibly good at
what he does, stoic and cold in his bearing, and seemingly occupies a niche
place within a dark, desperate world.
Mr.
Long is sent out of his native Taiwan for a hit in Tokyo, which goes terribly
wrong, but through a series of coincidences that only later become clear, he’s
able to escape (barely). He finds his
way to what appears to be a shantytown of sorts, where the child of a
smack-addicted Taiwanese woman finds him, brings him food and clothes, and
eventually befriends him. Mr. Long
expects to merely have a few days to gather cash for a smuggling trip back to
Taiwan, but he’s soon swept up in the fervent daydreams of a coterie of older
Japanese living nearby; after learning just how good a cook Mr. Long is, they
decide that he obviously must open a noodle stand near the temple, and plan
everything out with nary a word from him.
What
starts out as a graphic gangster film then turns into screwball comedy, as the
silent, stoic, and (seemingly) emotionless Mr. Long finds himself dragged
inexorably into the daily lives of the child that saved him, his troubled
mother, and these hilariously pushy, borderline exploitative (scratch that- extremely exploitative) neighbors. This is exacerbated by the fact that he can’t
actually speak Japanese, and so mostly has no idea what these people around him
are babbling about.
The
film is anchored by a riveting performance by its lead actor. For all his stern silence, he conveys worlds
with every hardened glance at the world around him. This is clearly someone who, long ago,
learned of all the harshness of life, and can never be intimidated by it
again. This tough outer shell of his
only cracks twice throughout the entire film, but boy, when it finally does happen,
it is a genuine sock in the gut.
As
chipper as the old folks are, though, and as adorable as the kid is, lives of
gangster violence and drug addiction invariably create pasts that can never be
fully left behind. Pressed by Mr. Long’s
forceful personality, the kid’s mother starts to pull herself into sobriety,
only to be challenged at a crucial moment later on, and it’s in diving back
into her story that the film inevitably returns to its dark origins. This is a movie that goes unflinchingly into
some hard territory, including severe drug addiction, depression, and suicide,
and the mother’s powerhouse performance anchors those parts of the film that
leave Mr. Long himself in the background for a time. Her fate ends up being tied back into how the
film started, and how Mr. Long was saved in the first place, but going beyond
that would constitute major spoilers, and this is a film well-worth
experiencing on your own.
Winding
through all this at the same time that retired do-gooders are obsessing over a
bowl of ramen involves quite a lot of emotional cork-screwing, the sort that
most directors can only dream of pulling off, but Sabu works wonders here. All the stresses, worries, and pressures
finally build up to a climactic action scene that is absolute dynamite, one of
the best scenes of hand-to-hand combat in a year already jam-packed with
fantastic action. From start to finish,
Mr. Long is a trip, a remarkable experience that, in its best moments, is among
the finest examples of genre-bending filmmaking to come out this year.
-Noah Franc
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