Reining in the melodramatic extravagance of Monrak Transistor, Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang reveals the influence of cult Japanese cinema in this study of cultural contrasts, deceptive appearances and lost souls.
While the spirit of Hirokazu Kore-eda and Kiyoshi Kurosawa is evident in the melancholic atmosphere, Takashi Miike's off-beat inspiration is reinforced by his cameo as a crazed yakuza opposite his Ichi The Killer star Tadanobu Asano, whose transformation into a compulsively neat librarian with a suicide complex is also slyly referential. But Asano's relationship with Sinitta Boonyasak is one of a kind, as the coincidences uniting them threaten to drive them apart.