A Wong Kar-Wai martial arts film is everything you would think it would be. However, there is a lack of character development that I suspect wouldn't be a problem if the 4 hour rough cut wasn't cut down to a mere 130 minutes.

Kiarostami's dark, melancholic Japanese outing is an endlessly engrossing, masterfully directed work that will frustrate the viewer as it strives for ambiguity - and, boy, does it achieve it; Kiarostami has gave us a fair few enigmatic endings but never before one like this - simultaneously a bang and a whimper.

I was apprehensive before watching this film as Fassbinder's subject matter isn't usually my cup of tea but I really enjoyed Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, his homage to the melodrama of Douglas Sirk. It's a great achievement, both a symphony to the borderless power of love whilst being an expose of the selfishness of human nature. It's also a scathing satire of late 60s/early 70s Germany, portraying the sickening racism that plagued society.