Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56063 in VHS
• Released on: 1990-09-27
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Format: NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1

Customer Reviews

Peculiar...
Sara Driver, the director, had previously worked with Jim Jarmusch, who serves as cinematographer on this film. It's the story of Nicole, an American translator of Chinese, who works for a translation firm. One day she receives an assignment to translate what appears to be an ancient (or at least very old) Chinese manuscript into English.

The events that unfold, based on her intense involvement in the assignment, are strange, surreal, fantastic--and become increasingly more so as the story progresses. Her roommate, played by the quirky and highly talented Ann Magnuson, loses all her hair in one fell swoop. Her son, half Chinese, is suddenly missing--kidnapped. A mysterious Chinese woman occasionally haunts the translation firm office, and is then murdered.

Steve Buscemi is here in one of his earliest roles; it's gratifying to see him in practically anything. The ending is suitably ambiguous. This is a great film if you want to immerse yourself in something definitely out of the ordinary, a very far cry from Hollywood spectacle.

Intriguing!