It looks like the Venice Film Festival committee had one more trick up their sleeve.
Today, organizers hit Twitter to announce: “”Life Without Principle” (Dyut Ming Gam) by Johnnie To is the new film in Competition at Venezia 68.” The film secures the last competition slot at the festival which boats a very strong lineup this year with “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Shame,” “Carnage,” “Alps,” “Killer Joe” and more all vying for a prize. While the “Election” and “Fulltime Killer” director took a bit of detour with his last film, the straight romance “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” he seems firmly back in familiar territory this time around.
Starring Lau Ching Wan, Richie Jen, Denise Ho and Terence Yin, the film seems to be inspired by the recent financial woes that have rocked markets worldwide. Here’s the official synopsis:
Life Without Principle tells the story of three characters: an ordinary bank teller turned financial analyst is forced to sell high risk securities to her customers in order to meet her sales target; a small-time thug delves into the futures index hoping to earn easy money to post bail for a buddy in trouble with the law; a straight-arrow Police inspector, who has always enjoyed his middle income lifestyle, is suddenly desperate for money when his wife puts a down payment on a luxury flat she can’t afford and his dying father wants him to look after a young half-sister he never knew he had.
Three little people who are in dire need of money for the predicaments in their respective lives have nothing in common until a bag of stolen money worth $5m pops up and lands them in an intricate situation that forces them into making soul searching decisions about right and wrong and everything in between on the morality scale.
“This is a turbulent world. In order to survive, people have no choice but play the game. No matter how hard you try to follow the rules, sooner or later, a part of you will be lost,” To said about his film which seems to suggest this will be some uncompromising stuff. And certainly, that the film shares the same name as Henry David Thoreau‘s famed rules for righteous living seems to be no coincidence. Check out the trailer below.
