"it happened so quickly... it was like a dream."
like mann, woo is a filmmaker of romance and moral codes on both sides of the law, of people that yearn for love and connection, trapped by institutions that swallow them. their jobs, their actions, their sense of 'right' and 'wrong' reduced to an infinitely layered blur of bodies, objects and movement in a perpetual state of collapse—it's abstract extravagance. there's an inherent romance to it, not just for the characters whose only means of expression it is, but for the audience too, and woo doesn't even pretend not to celebrate it with his lens. but with the cathartic destruction comes appalling collateral damage, both sides putting their fair share of innocence in the ground, locations of safety and reassurance transform into graveyards, the war between unhinged greed and systemic impotence, the only option: to get the fuck out.
full discussion on episode 102 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.