Dust of Angels

Hsu Hsiao-Ming's 1992 Taiwanese film opens with two teenagers growing up in an industrial town. A-Guo and A-Dou spend their days fighting and hang around with a young gang member; when the man he answers to is shot, the two set out for revenge. The film does not show crime as a career. The boys do not fully know what they are doing; the narrative has them plan clumsily and the consequences arrive fast. The section where they hide in the countryside is its calmest and most hopeless part. It belongs among the films about youth and violence made in Taiwan at the start of the nineties, with leading figures of the period on the production side. The cast is young and largely inexperienced, and the dialogue is in local speech. Who it's for: those who like Taiwanese cinema and youth crime drama. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a hopeful close; the film leaves its characters no way out.