Ruined Heart: Another Lover Story Between a Criminal and a Whore (BFI 59th London Film Festival)

I'm not quite sure why I decided to watch this film. Perhaps it was that the cinematographer was Christopher Doyle. Maybe it was that it starred Tadanobu Asano. Or, more likely, my extensive knowledge and love of Filipino cinema.

Either way, by the end, I don't believe any of these were reason enough to view this again. Directed by Khavn, this is essentially a seventy minute long music video. With no real narrative to speak of, this is a collection of arthouse shots to an interesting - and I mean interesting - musical score of various genres of interesting - and I mean hmm - music.

The viewer, therefore, is left to put the pieces of the story together themselves, with plot-holes throughout as the scene constantly changes.

Visually, there are some nice moments here, naturally with a film featuring Christopher Doyle as cinematographer. Tadanobu Asano often takes the role of cameraman during the film - as well as the amateur musician that he is - running around with a fisheye lens at the end of his plastered arm.

With music a key feature and Christopher Doyle involved, you can compare this to a Nineties Wong Kar-wai; the musical interludes in his films, of course. Here, however, Khavn has decided against fitting them around a real story, making them more a random collection of moments. Even if you do put the story together, it isn't exactly a life-changer.

For me, this film is just trying to be too cool. The, at times, over-stylised shots just seem to end up being an excuse for lots of gyrating hips; the nameless characters, such as 'The Criminal' or 'The Whore', reflect the lack of depth in the characterisation and storyline; and everything's just a little too 'abstract' to be enjoyable.

There are moments to this film: the street running and car montages, but these should serve as links in a more conventional film, rather than serving as stand-out segments in a string of segments. Things just don't really connect here.

If you want Christopher Doyle cinematography over music, it has been done much better before. If you want Asano giving a cool performance, he's given better, with more interesting characters to work with. The trailer was quite good, but that's essentially what this film feels like: a collection of scenes edited together to some music; story to follow. But, at the end of the day, there just weren't enough midgets with skateboards in the orgy scene for me.