Entertainment is all about capturing attention and providing pleasure. Look no further, as Wang Ding-Lin has cooked up just that with his latest creation: a fresh take on the overused heist film recipe, but with a unique twist, as the title suggests.
Breaking and Re-entering is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
The film opens with a brilliant demonstration by Chen, the arrogant heir to a Taiwanese family bank who recently made headlines by launching the bank’s own cryptocurrency. “You must know that virtual currencies have created countless billionaires. Any word that comes from a loser is nonsense. Bu, yao, ting! (don’t want to hear!) ” he declares to an agreeable journalist. To support his marketing plan and greenwash his controversial initiative, he pledges to donate a significant portion of the profits to various charities, a substantial amount in cash retained in a highly secured vault. Here is for the stash.
But stealing a stash demands an expert heisting gang. Enter the quartet of weirdo musketeers organized around Po-Chun (Chen Bo-Lin), the overprotective mastermind, gifted with an extraordinary sense of premonition. The band includes Uncle Bin (Frederick Ming), the greyish genius of makeup, who overplays his father figure role; Koa (Kent Tsai), the expert hacker who spends his days seeking a match who appreciates his passion for corny jokes; and Wen-Hao (J.C. Lin), the combat expert, stoic and loyal, yet possessing a secret Achilles’ heel. Here is for the gang.
Without revealing too much, it’s clear from the title that the story centers on a reverse heist: breaking into a bank, “Ocean’s Eleven” style, might seem routine, but returning what’s taken could be far more uncertain. Thus, after a fast and furious 16-minute introduction leading to the title screen and eventually transition to present-day events, the film deploys its meticulously structured and high-paced three acts,.
Yet, one may question: is this film a ‘guy flick’ then? That would overlook the delightful presence of Cecilia Choi as Po-Chun’s ex-girlfriend. While the team functions like a familial unit that Po-Chun feels responsible for, how will the children respond to their potential new stepmother? This subplot, recalling the pre-Code Hollywood remarriage comedy genre (see Stanley Cavell), is there to introduce a sweet touch of sentimentality in the male game. But fear not, “Breaking and Re-entering” leaves no time for melodrama: director Wang has committed to a compact runtime of less than 100 minutes, promising a laugh or standout moment every 10 minutes!
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Returning to cinema theory, heist films typically revolve around three essential ingredients. First ingredient is the robbery itself, an obsessive theme that reaches back to early cinema (as proof the “The Great Train Robbery” back in 1903). Second, comes the meticulous planning and execution, necessarily led by a mastermind protagonist, whatever genius or incorrigible loser. Initially confined to Film Noir (John Huston’s “Asphalt Jungle”, 1950, to name one), contemporary films preferably focus on a careful description the setup of the crime, usually in a form openly inspired by the 60s TV series “Mission Impossible” but evolving alongside advancements in security measures. This classic figure in narrative, not limited to the heist film genre, is almost a category by itself, with its own codes and typical filming techniques, as we can witness in many, form the perfectly orchestrated ambush of Eiichi Kudo‘s inspirational “13 Assassins” (1963) to the more recent Shin Godzilla (Hideaki Anno & Shinji Higuchi in 2016). The third and last ingredient involves assembling a diverse yet complementary team as in the influential ‘Seven Samurai‘ (Kurosawa, 1954) which still stands as the epitome of the genre .
One stash, one plan, one gang. So where does ‘Breaking and Re-entering’ stands? In a perfect execution of the (cooking) lessons learned, with a certain brilliance, we must acknowledge. A creative (abusive?) use of flashbacks supporting the course of the action creates a sustained dynamic all along the film, while sophisticated editing techniques like split screens and multiple camera angles simplify a potentially complex narrative blended with premonitory flashforwards, interlaced flashbacks and choral actions. Yet, if one has to critique, there’s a slight tendency to overly rationalize in a storyline that basically has no grounding (who relies on lasers for vault security these days!).
Acting is vibrant and rhythmic, prerequisite for a respectable Chinese-language slapstick comedy. Chen Bo-Lin impresses as an insecure man-next-door turned super-thieve, reminiscent of Stephen Chow‘s heroes. However, each protagonist having predefined traits and behaviors, actors weren’t exactly pushed beyond expectations. Lively dialogues and inventive absurdities take center stage, featuring nonsensical humor inspired by Mo Lei Tau tradition, comedic repetition (“Nose, heart, (…)”) and comical inventions like these memorable explosive scallion pancakes. A special mention to the joke with the car’s automatic door, which is a real gem !
That being said, from the perspective of a gray-haired film critic raised on Lubitsch and Wilder, this film might appear merely as a brilliant exercise in style. Yet, is this the right lens to view it through? Criticizing its perceived lack of dramaturgical intention (how can we fault a director who claims to have watched the ‘Ocean’s’ series over 50 times!), perhaps we should approach contemporary films from a fresh angle – possibly as a distinct time in cinema, which we could assimilate to hyper-cinema. These young filmmakers, ultra-literate and benefiting from a global multi-platform culture inclusive of the recent omnipresence of manga and video games, are capable of capturing the attention of the YouTube/TikTok generation, adept at severe zapping reflexes. Indeed, a generation of filmmakers once inspired by literature (like Kurosawa with Shakespeare, not to start a long list) has long passed away. Now, a new generation nurtured by early exposure to screens and immersed in a gaming-centric culture since youth is shaping the future of cinema.
And this is where Asian cinema has taken a leading role, initially driven by a South Korean New Wave with films that redefined conventions like Bong Joon-ho‘s “The Host” in 2006 or “Snowpiercer” in 2013 (originally based on a graphic novel). Hollywood, in turn, desperately ties to keep pace with recent movies like Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in 2023 (notably about a Chinese immigrant family) or Bullet Train in 2022 (again, based on a Japanese Novel of Kotaro Isaka). After passing such a film in a conventional critical grill, critics are eventually left with the one simple final question: will the movie connect with its audience as its primary goal is to entertain, regardless of the mastery in making or emotional depth ? Looking at the previous tremendous success of “Crazy Stone” (Ning Hao, 2006) or “The Thieves” (Choi Dong-hoon, 2012), I’d venture to say yes.
