I watched this Hungarian film on 2002 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Beforehand, I read some texts about it, and also some awards credits. However, it turned out to be disappointing.
The film is adapted from the very same director's short story. I wonder what the main goal is and why the director used "this way" to tell his story. We see a country-based young adult came to a city, became a policeman, and met a Chinese girl, so called Maria, by the way, starred by a Japanese actress, which drove me crazy just listening to her accent and expressions. Each scene is hardly connected ever since it faded in black. Those characters are not expressive at all, that I could never tell what they're going to do or the motives why they did those things. I can only see in fractions how Karcsi's crazy about Maria and those conflicts and the suicidal action.
Maria (excuse me, her Chinese is so bed that I can't understand her name, not to mention to memorize it) is weirder: I couldn't tell what she was doing or if she's an illegal immigrant as her first show-up in that factory (?), and I don't know why she kept coming back to Karcsi then left him again and again. I think the later scene of the sheltered Chinese restaurant and karaoke may explain that, but still failed. Is she a whore? Is it because of that, she walked away from Karcsi? I can't tell.
And Karcsi's two friends are strange, too. When they showed up at the first time in the car, I thought there would be more parts of them, but they're just some unreasonable typical dramatic villains to tear the loving couple apart. I even don't understand the reason: she's really a whore? Or they suspected she's a whore? Any racial discrimination involved? I don't know.
I don't want to be too critical, but maybe the director is not clear about visional language; what should be seen and what should be spoke in internal monologue. He's probably interested in Chinese or Oriental cultures, but doesn't know how to show them in a film or a novel. Or maybe it's the English subtitle's fault. Who knows? In short, I assume it should be a struggling love story between two different races, but the fact is that the story itself is broken, the characters are not clear and the plots are inconsistent.
Nevertheless, the music in this film is great ad amusing, although it's not that suitable.
