A War Named Desire (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3

Young Hong Kong pretty boy, Jones (Daniel Chan) heads down into Thailand to find his brother, Charles (Francis Ng), who absconded with the family savings a dimly-remembered 15 years ago. With interest, Jones has decided the sum now comes to $2 million, and the enigmatic Charles hands it over. "There's no such thing as a free lunch," he glowers, presses a gun into Jones' hand, points it at the head of a trembling hostage, and pulls the trigger. It's about then that Jones realizes that this is going to be a little bit more complex than he thought. His girlfriend, Jess, has tagged along for the ride and she quickly becomes a casualty of a seething Chinatown war just starting to spill over the sides. It's a family movie from hell as Charles, his partner, York, and York's sister, the ice-cold hitwoman, Snow all find themselves on the wrong ends of each other's guns.

Taking a cue or six from Milkyway Image, scored with burning flamenco guitars of death, A War Named Desire is one of the better movies to come out of Hong Kong in 2000. Francis Ng is locked-down and intense, and Daniel Chan and Pace Wu effectively play pampered urbanite fluff. It's Gigi Leung, surprisingly, who really shines. Her weary hitwoman, Snow, has a world of trauma and pain behind her dull ice eyes, and she moves with the resignation of someone who knows that whatever happens next will be more horrible than what happened before.

by Grady Hendrix