Help Me Eros

Tsai Ming-liang's regular leading man is here with his second feature film as a director, safely supervised by the master himself who also helps out as a production designer. Director Lee is also playing the lead, as a man who has gone bankrupt after heavy losses at the stock exchange. The only things that keep him going in the spiritual sense are marihuana ...and women (hence the title). All in all, this is an unusually carefree, almost simple, banal and vulgar movie from a film scene that normally puts us to harder tests. Tsai Ming-liang's crew has made a film about simple issues like sex, drugs and… ok, loneliness.

The fallen speculator Ah Jie is tormented by loneliness and suicidal thoughts, so he calls a helpline. At the other end is Chyi, in a great performance by Jane Liao. Ah Jie gets obsessed by thoughts of the beautiful Chyi and makes a plan to meet her. This is the basis of the film's amusing subplot about Chyi, a beautiful soul trapped in a badly balanced marriage, with food as a central ingredient. Ah Jie's little expedition to hunt down Chyi, however, is far from as successful as planned.

In the absence of a new Tsai film this year, you can chuckle your way through this odd splash of colour from the back streets of Taipei. Lee Kang-sheng is perhaps not an ”auteur”, like Tsai Ming-liang is regarded as by many. But he knows how to entertain, at the same time as he demonstrates a solid grounding in Asian neon tristesse aesthetics that many of us have learnt to appreciate. bb