2 Movies Like Chopper (2000)

Like many of Edward Yang’s films, The Terrorizers examines Taiwan’s urbanized society, but this time, it’s centered around the rougher side of town, where a shooting incident connects the lives of three couples. At first, the scenes don’t make much sense, as the film rapidly shifts from couple to couple without explanation, and the sequence being used to place doubt on the reality of certain scenes. But as the film progresses, these scenes form into something like a puzzle, a piece of a whole treatise on the way real and unreal intersect, the way these perceptions shape one’s relationships. The Terrorizers is somber, and baffling, and sometimes downright bleak, but it’s a fascinating enigma on today’s urban loneliness.

Genre: Crime, Drama

Actor: Cora Miao, Gu Bao-Ming, King Shih-Chieh, Lee Lichun, Ming Liu, Yu An-Shun

Director: Edward Yang

In my own wished-for parallel universe, French actors Vincent Cassell and Emanuelle Devos are voted the sexiest actors alive. I find them both transfixing and appealing in every role they’ve performed, and they are quite the pair here. Devos plays Carla, a put-upon assistant at a property management company. While good at her job, there is little room for her to advance her career, as she is one of the only women at her company and also has a hearing deficiency. Into her humdrum life walks ex-convict Paul (Cassell), who Carla hires as a personal assistant. It turns out that what Paul lacks in secretarial skills he makes up for in other ways. The first half of the film plays almost like a dark workplace comedy, before taking a dangerous turn towards psychological crime thriller. Overall, it’s a dark and sexy character study of two mismatched outsiders who turn out to complement each other perfectly.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller

Actor: Bernard Alane, Bô Gaultier de Kermoal, Celine Samie, Chloé Mons, Christiane Cohendy, Christophe Van de Velde, Christophe Vandevelde, David Saracino, Emmanuelle Devos, Francois Loriquet, Gladys Gambie, Isabelle Caubère, Nathalie Lacroix, Olivia Bonamy, Olivier Gourmet, Olivier Perrier, Patrick Steltzer, Pierre Diot, Serge Boutleroff, Serge Onteniente, Vincent Cassel

Director: Jacques Audiard

Rating: R