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A middle-aged pickpocket forced to retire by a nervous disease which causes his hands to shake spends all his time in his bare apartment, occasionally eaves-dropping on a neighbour and watching TV programmes about Tang Dynasty poetry. His former apprentice, a young woman, daily tries to coax him back into action and suggests taking part in a major robbery. He silently coldshoulders her, but then a murder next door brings a stolen gun into the picture. Beyond the obvious irony there’s an aesthetic point being made. In its careful, rigid compositions, its wry minimalism and its use of reflections, the film is reaching for the rigour and resonance of classical poetry. It’s a worthy ambition, and Zhang succeeds in giving the film a real formal integrity. But the film is also very funny, in the slow-burn, deadpan way that Tsai Ming-Liang films are funny.
