blonde woman's revenge? (spoilers)

Maybe theres a good reason, but I think this film is flawed in a number of ways, and I too found this confusing.

I am a patient filmwatcher, in fact I love a good slow movie - not many people sit through Tarkovskys "Mirror" and come out happy the other side - but the second story was sluggish, and frankly badly paced.

And the repetition of music (the same reggae track in the bar, and california dreaming played at least 8 times) drove me mad - far from subtle.

Many brilliant things, great camera work, nice existentialist feel, but in a number of places a littel amateurish - WKW later work shows how far he has mastered his craft.

Sometimes flawed films have their own charm - and it seems to have charmed many - but Quentin Tarintino is wrong to call this a masterpiece: too flawed to be a masterpiece. Great film all the same though.

It seemed to me that the white dude was the controlling force behind the scarpering of the indians, but Kar Wai doesn't exactly make it crystal clear. It's not particularly important though I don't think, the feel of the film was what made it special to me, sometimes we get too hung up on having to know exactly what is going on, why should the audience necessarily get all the answers? Life isn't like that. I've said too much...

All spoilers
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Briefly: Yes, the white guy in the bar was the main conspirator.

She was set up to be ripped off.

The bartender/dealer gives her an envelope at the bar that starts the whole thing going.

Later - all the mules disappeared in a moment, in public, just before departure time. Creating a debt she can never repay.

Desperate to find the mules and get the drugs back she kidnaps a little girl - the daughter of a friend of one of the mules.

Her voice over:

"Some men might sacrifice a kid to save their own skin... But he wasn't one of them."

Now she knows the scam - or at least enough to get to work.

An hour later she lures or is followed and she shoots two would be assassins in public and flees for her life.

That night the drug dealer/bartender aggressively has physical interactions with a woman wearing a similar blond wig.

They are still having heavy physical contact the next day when the drug dealer sends her out to get cigarettes.

You can read this any number of ways, e.g.: relationship with a surrogate, as a fantasy of control, subjugating or controlling independent women, obsession with the one you can't have, whatever, but it is no random coincidence. Does it have anything to do with why she was set up? I don't know.

As the dealer is 'freshening up' the same reggae/ska song is playing on the jukebox (I think it is 'things in life' - a sort of life is up, life is down, what you gonna do?) as when she picked up the envelope that started her adventure in the beginning.

The drug dealer is lured into the alley by the sounds of new-born kittens. She shoots him without hesitation, execution style.

As she is pursued by the mob (crew?) from the bar, her 'job' is over. she drops her wig (disguise), we see her for a moment and then she disappears into the city.

Or at least that's the way I'm calling it today.

Cheers,

Baartock

I got the impression that he was the main guy behind the drug ring, and that he was the one to be afraid of since she let the Indians get away. To remedy her problems, she just killed the guy who was a threat to her. That's how I saw it at least.

She came to the bar earlier and was given a pineapple can with an expiration date in 3 days (or something, I don't remember exactly). It was clear from the narration that she has until that date to find the Indians and return the drugs or she will be killed, presumably by the guy who owns the bar/runs the drug smuggling operation.

She couldn't find the drugs in 3 days so decided to kill him before he could kill her.

That's my take anyway.

[deleted]