Chuen zik saat sau (Fulltime Killer)

"Even bad movies have good trailers," says Lok Tok-Wah (Andy Lau): "Our lives should be just as exciting." Lok puts this into practice: he is a hitman and imagines his life as a full-time killer like a screenplay, playing out his favorite films, from Alain Delon's cold angel in *Le Samouraï* to the gangsters with U.S. presidential masks in *Point Break*. Lok wants to secure the top spot among professional killers: his rival is a reserved Japanese man who is in love with the same video store clerk. The urban jungle becomes a deadly playground in this virtuoso piece by Johnnie To and his congenial partner Wai Ka-fai. Wild directorial ideas and cinephilic references seem limitless, but the adrenaline rush of postmodern action cascades is not, as often is the case, an end in itself, but a sleek vehicle for a meditation on fate. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by Christoph Huber on March 10, 2025

Photo: Austrian Film Museum