Saw Dragon (2011) (thanks, Basil!) It was a martial arts movie that borrows the rough outline of A History of Violence. The central character is a man trying to escape his violent past by starting afresh as a paper-maker. A detective uncovers his past and indirectly reconnects the paper-man with his old 'friends.' The detective, in a bizarre addition, self-medicates via acupuncture to kill his own emotions. The detective explicitly thinks of his emotional self as another person who is sometimes seen by us viewers. This is kind of strange but is thematically interesting as both the protagonist and the detective have other "selves" they wish to overcome. One by running and hiding, the other via (a kind of) medication. This struggle to escape one's past takes on an interesting tint when viewed through a Chinese lens. As far as I know (with all of my vast worldly knowledge, gleaned from years of never leaving New England,) the Chinese have much more faith in destiny. There's not as much emphasis on choosing your own life as there is in America. Again, this is only so far as I know, but I feel like there's a paper on comparative culture to be written here.
As usual with Asian cinema, the emotions are completely over-the-top. Everything is so dramatic that the very scenery takes notice. At one point a character shouts "WHAT HAS HAPPENED?" and the entire house around him rattles in shock. Hilarious. The fight scenes are pretty good. There's about four, each one better than the last. I particularly liked the fight between the paper-man and the woman with two short blades. There's also a scene where the detective and paper-man concoct a plan to evade their enemies that for some reason causes a montage of previous and future scenes from the film. Though the choice of montage is strange, the montage itself is awesome and thrilling.
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