Only God Forgives

Plot synopsis:
Julian is an American expatriate who runs a Muay Thai club in Bangkok, Thailand as a front for drug dealing. His older brother Billy rapes and kills an underage sex worker and is cornered by Thai police. Lieutenant Chang allows the girl's father, Choi Yan Lee, to beat Billy to death in the same room Billy killed the girl. Chang then cuts off the father's forearm for allowing his daughter to be a sex worker.
Julian also engages in aberrant sexual practices. He prefers to be bonded as he watches his favorite prostitute, Mai, masturbate. Upon discovering his brother has been murdered, Julian and his crew go to Choi's kiosk to confront him. He decides to spare Choi's life after hearing about Chang's involvement. When Julian's mother, Crystal, arrives in Bangkok to identify Billy's corpse, she demands Julian find and kill the men responsible for Billy's death. He refuses—believing Choi was justified in avenging the death of his daughter—infuriating Crystal. Fascinated by his sense of justice, Julian imagines meeting Chang in a dark room, where Chang cuts Julian's hands off.
Julian brings Mai to meet Crystal, posing as his girlfriend. Crystal sees through the ruse, insulting Mai and demeaning Julian, pronouncing him to be sexually inferior to his dead brother. Julian is passive to Crystal's verbal abuse, but his aggravation results in him viciously humiliating Mai afterwards. At Crystal's request, one of the fighters at Julian's boxing club assassinates Choi. Later, the police arrive at Julian's club, but Chang concludes that Julian is not Choi's killer. Julian recognises Chang from his visions and follows him from the boxing club, but Chang seems to disappear into thin air.
After learning that Chang was involved in Billy's death, Crystal meets with an associate, Byron, to arrange Chang's assassination. Three gunmen on motorbikes are sent to kill Chang at a restaurant, which results in several customers and two of Chang's men being killed in a shoot-out. Chang kills two of the gunmen, follows the third on foot, and beats him with a frying pan. The surviving gunman leads Chang to his boss, Li Po, who has resorted to arranging assassination contracts as a means of providing for his crippled son. Chang then kills the gunman but spares Li Po after seeing his affection for his son. Li Po points Chang to Byron, who ordered the hit. Chang finds Byron in a club and tortures him to reveal the reasoning behind the hit.
Julian confronts Chang and challenges him to a fight at Julian's boxing venue. Chang, an experienced boxer, quickly beats Julian, who does not land a single blow. Afterwards, Crystal tells Julian that Chang has figured out she ordered the hits. Fearful for her life, she pleads with Julian to kill Chang, the same way she asked Julian to kill his own father for her. She promises that after Julian kills Chang, they will go back home, and she will be a true mother to him.
With his associate Charlie Ling, Julian infiltrates Chang's home after shooting Chang's guard dead, intent on ambushing Chang when he returns. Charlie informs Julian that Crystal instructed him to execute Chang's entire family. Charlie murders the nanny of Chang's daughter as she enters the home, but Julian kills Charlie before he can murder Chang's young daughter.
Chang and a police officer find Crystal in the hotel where she is staying. She explains how Julian killed his father with his bare hands, asserting to Chang that Julian is violent and deranged, blaming him for the violent crimes committed in the family's name. Chang decides to punish her by cutting her throat. Later, Julian returns to the hotel and finds his mother's corpse. In silence, he approaches her body and cuts open her abdomen before placing his hand inside of the wound.
Julian is later shown standing in a field with Chang, who appears to cut off both of Julian's hands with his sword. Finally Chang is singing at a karaoke bar to an audience of attentive police officers.

Tags: comedy, neo noir, murder, violence, psychedelic, revenge

Review:
Lots of violent, strange et slow films have been presented at the Cannes film festival since its creation but yet every time a film pushes the boundaries of violence while keeping its own style, most critics go mad and sometimes shout at the screening, even leaving the theater before the end and calling it "outrageous".
If you know Nicolas Winding Refn's style and like it then you'll enjoy this movie but if you've only seen Drive and believe this is going to be in the same style (because of the same actor, similar cinematography, same musical style...) believe me you'll be disappointed.
Here Refn feels a lot more philosophical, and comes back to his original style in directing films such as Valhalla Rising : great visuals, slow-pasted action, scenes that seem a bit detached from one-another, deep character development, little dialogue, extreme violence mixed with soft and/or trance-electro music...
all of which are here to deal with philosophical, deep, hard subjects like revenge, good and bad, mother/son relationship etc...When it comes to the acting Gosling does not disappoints however this time Refn wanted to do the opposite that he did in Drive : showing the weakness of his character.
He completely understood the movie's atmosphere and makes his character feel mysterious and fascinating.To sum-up this is a very atmospheric, deep movie with great actors/actresses and dealing with difficult and serious themes, with some philosophical analysis possible, but definitely not in the same style as Drive, even though it has some similarities with it..
That message really depends on how you interpret the film, and differentiates from person to person.For instance, Vithaya Pansringarm's character can be perceived in a variety of ways - a silent angel out to balance the injustices of his city, a delusional man who thinks of himself as God, or a vengeful cop who is simply out to do his job.
I don't expect everyone to like this film - it is certainly not for fans of Hollywood blockbusters and those who start their reviews with statements similar to 'I went to see this movie because I like Ryan Gosling/Kristin Scott Thomas' render all further comments null and void - their opinions are simply worthless and cannot be taken seriously.The cinematography is excellent and the acting superb.
Drive had a pretty brisk pace, good dialogue, a plot that went somewhere, and a likable character.Only God Forgives had none of that.
Even the characters move and turn slowly.The plot, such as it is, you would probably find worth watching, but Nicolas Winding Refn peppers it with pseudo-dream sequences and many pointless scenes that drag on for ever, so that the plot becomes hard to stay interested in.Now, some things you might care about.The acting.
It is extremely difficult to get yourself to care for any of them, including Gosling's, who is arguably the protagonist here.Aside from Scott Thomas' acting, the only other redeeming quality of this film is the excellent way in which most scenes are set up and shot.
Expecting something along the likes of Drive, which was a great cinematic experience in my opinion, I got to see something which had similarities in execution and style but turned out to be a very different movie from the latter.
Just the story of a lost man who seeks his way, other side a cop who thinks he is God. It's to the spectator to find the morals of the story.The music (electro-pop) and Vithaya's interpretations are in total agreement with the progression of the story and the pictures.The actors succeed in transmitting the feelings and impressions of the characters with simple glances.We leave the room completely disturbed, while being posed full with questions, trying to assimilate all the asked questions by the artist, but completely fascinated and excited !It is simple either one loves, or one hates this film.
I do understand why people hate it, that also means that I understand why people love it because I am one of them.This movie was shot by cinematographer Larry Smith who also worked with Kubrick on 'Eyes wide shut', he made an extraordinary job shooting this picture because it was mesmerizing and beautiful to watch from the beginning to the end.
He doesn't have anything to prove on that point because he already showed us that he can do it if he wants to, and I think once you let go of that then it will be a lot more easier to enjoy and experience this movie because it is a movie that is based on ideas which is clearly what Nicolas Winding Refn is focusing on rather than having a moving plot or story.The atmosphere in this movie was really something, it was almost as if you were a part of it thanks to this movie being very slow paced, and that's why I've always been a big fan of slow-paced movies.
And I loved the fact that our protagonist got beaten down to a point where we couldn't see his normal face, and I liked the relationship that Julian (Ryan Gosling) and Crystal had (Kristen Thomas) because I could feel that strange mother-to-son love type of relationship even though it was very tense, that probably has to do with good chemistry between the two actors.
I guess if David Lynch were to make an extremely violent movie, I think it would look something like this, there were indeed some Lynch-moments in there and some Kubrick shots which I absolutely loved.
I think Refn at one point called this a Thai-western about a man who is fighting against god, and I couldn't stop thinking about that whilst I was watching it because that's exactly what it is.People can trash this movie all they want, we even had two people walking out of the theater.
I liked the subtext behind the whole relationship between Chang (who in is own ways has a twisted God complex) and Julian's character.In the end it makes me a little sad, i think with a little more time put into working with the actors, it could've elevated the movie to another level, also without spoiling anything, i think the out of the box scenes could've been pushed a little more!!
The neon-lit cinematography is simply stunning and quite often disguises the senselessness of what is actually going on, whilst the ballsy performance from Kristen Scott Thomas as Gosling's reprehensible white-trash mother is a terrific display of her versatility and deserving of a much better movie.
Nicolas Winding Refn's new feature, Only God Forgives is a good film, his best offering I've seen so far.
Drive, the previous movie from director Nicholas Winding Refn and actor Ryan Gosling, utilised a deliberate and rather stilted style that not only resulted in a unique air of cool but which also had the effect of making the movie's explosive scenes of violence more impactful.
Time eventually loses all meaning.Even the film's few scenes of brutal violence are shot in such a way as to render them totally boring.Art-house types will love the film (or at least pretend to), finding hidden meaning and symbolism in its languorous plot and mind-bogglingly dull execution, but most right-minded people will quite rightly dismiss this for the utter garbage that it is..
This in turn brings about a spiralling circle of violence, when their mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) attempts to induce vengeful retribution on those responsible, despite the half-hearted opposition of the quietly numb younger sibling Julian (an ever-distant Ryan Gosling).With "Drive" as a reference point, Refn seemingly intended to push the envelope further down the road, replacing the withdrawn anti-hero with a tirade of depraved villains, offering only two characters: Chang and Julian any sort of moral code, however skewed and lopsided it may be.
OK let me tell you, I really enjoyed Bronson as a film, however, both Drive and Only God Forgives are nothing more than beautiful women with lots of make up on them but without any brain.It seems to me like Nicholas Windin Refn got spoiled and lost his mind with the expensive filming toys and A class actors from Hollywood.
OK, I get that the incredibly slow pace -- the characters pose like statues, and everyone stares into space for half a minute or so before delivering a line -- is intentional, that this director thinks he's the second coming of Stanley Kubrick.
More, it's not necessarily the fact that Kristin Scott Thomas gives a bad performance, she just gives one that feels misplaced and too blunt for a film clearly trying to maintain a minimalist charisma about its ways.Two things are slightly mesmerizing about Only God Forgives - that is - until redundancy breeds contempt.
I look at films like Only God Forgives and am astonished they could even stand from the ground up on the thin material they're crafted on.Writer/director Nicholas Winding Refn finally received some mainstream attention and credibility when his film Drive took people by surprise in 2011.
As someone who has made a priority out of seeking out lesser-known films over the years, I find Only God Forgives nearly impossible to believe on an impressionistic, independent frontier, and inconceivably brooding (like its character) when trying to exist on Hollywood ground.
Knowing what a film like this can do to a Thai person who has had no contact with foreigners and already heard from stories that foreigners are all bad people, makes you sick to your stomach.Watch it or don't watch it, but if you're a Thai person, I hope you know better than to think that this movie is an accurate depiction of how foreign people think and act.And Ryan Gosling...
Before you get your kink on, that's not a good thing.So you like - no you LOVE - the movie "Drive" and you think, "hey this other movie was written and directed by the same bloke, sounds promising!" - and then you find out you were dead wrong.Great direction and cinematography, yawner senseless story.
I think he manages about 6 lines of dialogue in the entire film, the rest he just stares at the camera.The characters were completely bizarre, not much of anything made much sense at all, when the film finished I thought to myself, well that's an hour and a half of my life I wont be getting back.It looked pretty, I suppose - lots of neon colours, but cinematography is not enough.I think it's high time Gosling and Refn part ways..
Moody lighting and long camera shots don't make up for a lack of story.And all that staring - I felt like I was watching one of those bad daytime soaps.Under no circumstances pay money to see this movie - it's not even worth seeing for free..
Stylish but astoundingly insubstantial, this film is visually stunning throughout, but was completely doomed by Refn's decision to eliminate all but around nine or ten lines of dialogue to allow more time for lingering shots of Gosling staring blankly into the middle-distance.The torture scenes are more painful for the audience than the recipients of said torture, but they do nothing to elicit an emotional response from the audience - or even build any momentum or tension.By the time the final act of a film arrives, the viewer must have made some kind of emotional investment in AT LEAST ONE of the characters to be interested in how things turn out.
However in this case, there wasn't a single character whom I actually cared about, they were all entirely superficial and obnoxious.I know some people feel as strongly positive about Only God Forgives as I do negative - some films are designed to be divisive.
Visually, I consider Only God Forgives as a piece of art, the way the director expresses the feel of the movie with the help of a great cinematography and lights it's just breathtaking sometimes.In terms of the movie personally I consider the story not as good as Drive, and although is not the intention, is impossible no to do the comparison due to the way Drive drove my mind away with the acting of Ryan Gosling.My point of view is that the movie is intended completely in other way as Drive was, and it's purpose gets well done with the tension that's created by the director with all the shots specially prepare to declare a certain feeling without much movement.
The cinematography is astonishing, the way the DP works playing the lights and reflections, makes it a colorful movie with a message each time the colors of the background and the actors change, depending on the place and situation.It is a slow movie but definitely a recommendation for its visual impact.
A distressed Julian doesn't know how to handle the situation and matters get worse when his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) flies into town to deal with the death of her first son.Ultimately the story is about a man who thinks he's God (Officer Chang) clashing forces with a man on a spiritual journey of self-discovery, avoiding violent behavior and questioning his morality, and the morality of those around him.
I give her plenty of credit though I'm sure it's difficult to work off silence, which she does throughout the entire movie.No matter how you feel about the acting or plot, even the negative reviews have to admit how beautiful this film looks and sounds.
Cliff Martinez continues his streak of brilliance; following Spring Breakers with this striking electronic score that can only be described as haunting.If you know anything about Refn you know he's afraid to do the same thing twice, so in order to ensure he wasn't duplicating Drive (which he originally planned to do AFTER Only God Forgives) he made this film as tonally different as possible.
With Drive, we got a compelling story with heart and soul, but with Refn's new film, we only get the flash.Only God Forgives is a treat for the senses.
It would be an understatement to say that I had been looking forward to the release of Only God Forgives from Danish-born film director and writer Nicolas Winding Refn, teaming up once more with Ryan Gosling.
She is pitted against Lt Chang, a police officer complicit in Billy's death.The film was a strange mix of ultra violent set pieces, interspersed with surreal dream-like episodes and two very odd scenes where Lt Chang, a clinically efficient killer, singing karaoke – the point of these scenes escaped me.There was little dialogue in this movie which at only 90 minutes long had far too many ponderous scenes with long silences punctuated by taciturn and non-convincing conversation.
A good few of the actors - including Ryan Gosling, who is usually note-perfect - seem curiously stilted and out of place a lot of the time, perhaps this is just the result of filming in so foreign a clime.Having said that, though, there are some fine, haunting moments along the way, and Kristen Scott Thomas is in fine fettle throughout as the slightly incestuous (but still damn foxy) mother.
As for Refn, using an actor like Ryan Gosling was a genius move since it will probably put backsides in the seats, but that is clearly what the entire budget went to because the story will put everyone to sleep.There is a lot of violence, blood and guts stuff, much like "Vahalla Rising," but beyond that this movie is just dumb.
The acting is actually solid enough for this weird movie, but overall everything in it is just very confusing and bizarre in the "wtf" kind of way all the way through till' the end, and you're like: "What did i just watch" This 90 minute flick wasn't a total waste of time though.
If you like movies that will just waste your time - "only God forgive" can provide.This is for sure the last movie made by Nicolas Refn I will ever see, and THank GOD for that!" I will never give this so called Director/writer a chance again and if I see him here in Thailand or in COpenhagen I will tell him in person that he should change carrier path to something that has nothing to do with entertainment!
Perhaps this says something for the lack of truly awful films the person has actually seen, but if you are familiar with the reference to the Lynch directed masterpiece, or in fact David Lynch at all, you are already most of the way towards knowing whether you can sit through the hour and a half that is 'Only God Forgives'.Nicolas Winding Refn's second collaboration with Ryan Gosling was not going to be a Gosling film at all; it was only due to the dropping out of a fairly unknown British actor, for a role in 'The Hobbit', and Gosling's desire to help his best buddy director, that lead to where we are now.
Overall i would go see this movie, if you can take some violence, there are some really bloody and gory scenes, if you liked drive, there is a big chance you are going to like Only god forgives..
But this movie is just so incredibly dull and boring you don't care about anything that is happening on the screen, you don't care about any of the characters, you don't care about any of the subtext because it's all just so damn DULL and emotionless.Films like mulholland drive and the fountain are examples of artistic films done well, because even if you don't follow these mind bending stories, they still provide the audience with an incredibly deep and powerful experience.
I will never watch a movie if I know it has been directed by this director, named Refn, either.If you are not a Ryan Gosling fan or a Kristan Scott Thomas fan, you might like to watch their careers go down a notch after making this film.