The Air I Breathe

The film is divided into four parts, each named for a notion taken from a Chinese proverb: Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow and Love. The man in Happiness is a banker who decides to take a risk for once. The gangster in Pleasure can see the future but not his own death. In Sorrow a pop star is trapped by her contract. In Love a doctor loses everything for a woman he does not know. The four stories connect through blood, debt and coincidence. The structure has its own rule: each part brings forward an event that happened in the background of the one before. That is what works; what does not is that the four stories are not of equal quality. Jieho Lee directed, his first feature. The cast includes Kevin Bacon, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Emile Hirsch and Julie Delpy. The idea at the centre is how far fate can be known; the character who sees the future carries it as a curse, and the story gives him no way out. Who it is for: anyone who likes multi-strand structures and independent films with crowded casts. Who it is not for: anyone wanting coherence. The tone varies between sections, some of the connections are forced, and the film takes its own framework too seriously.