One Last Dance (DVD)

A soulful lead performance by Francis Ng as a disillusioned hit man is the main reason to see One Last Dance, a Singapore-set tribute to Hong Kong gangster movies from maverick Brazilian-born scribe-director Makowski. This muted, atmospheric exercise is a culturally mixed grab-bag of genre references, over-the-top violence and occasionally broad humor that no doubt will find a niche among Asian-cinema extremists on DVD.

Ng plays T, a shadowy assassin who becomes embroiled in a confusing web of kidnappers and Italian mobsters (one played by Keitel). Time-shuffling structure, cartoonishly stylised bursts of blood and a suitcase whose contents are never revealed suggest a lingering Pulp Fiction residue, albeit in a moodier, less virtuosic key. A sensitive soul who plays correspondence chess with the captain of the police force (Lung), T falls in love with a beautiful waitress (Vivian Hsu), the sister of gangster Ko (Quek), as the film mutates — with ample assistance from John Swihart's lovely score — into an awkwardly poignant study of a killer's longing for lost innocence.

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