Product Description

A small-time Los Angeles night club owner falls for a lavish invitation to gamble at a private club. After losing high stakes on extended credit, he is pressured by a gangster to erase his debt by killing a rival underworld power referred to only as "The Chinese Bookie." Ben Gazarra, Seymour Cassel

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90937 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-04-06
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 135 minutes

Amazon.com
Anyone expecting The Killing of a Chinese Bookie to be an action-packed film about a gangland murder is going to be sorely disappointed--the title is the only commercial element in this fascinating character study by writer-director John Cassavetes, who once again finds his cinematic soulmate in actor Ben Gazzara. Doing for sleazy Hollywood strip-joints and underworld bullies what Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets did for the denizens of New York's Little Italy, the film uses verité technique to tell the story of Cosmo Vitelli (Gazzara), a strip-club owner whose growing debt to a local gangster (the chilling Morgan Woodward) can only be erased if he agrees to kill a rival Chinese gangster. Reluctantly, Cosmo carries out the job with startling efficiency.

As usual, Cassavetes employs his favorite actors (including Seymour Cassel and the fearsome Timothy Carey) and vivid improvisation to give Chinese Bookie a tense atmosphere of emotional urgency--the film's tone is one of keen desperation, as if we've been invited to witness Cosmo's dark night of the soul. Anyone who's unfamiliar with Cassavetes's style may find this film grating and impenetrable, but those in tune with the director's defiant independence will surely appreciate his emphasis on character, psychology, and revealing flashes of human behavior, captured on film as only Cassavetes could capture them. Watching this film, you can readily understand why Cassavetes has had such a steady influence on Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and a host of like-minded independent filmmakers. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and sadly neglected film
"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is one of my all time favourite films and I bought it the moment I saw it was on DVD. However the DVD is quite dissapointing considering it is not in widescreen (even though it doesn't really suffer from cropping) and the picture and sound quality are quite dodgy. Nevertheless it is a brilliant and powerful film that contains an excellent performance from Ben Gazzara as well as some very memorable scenes and visuals. This is surely a films that deserves a place in any true film buffs DVD collection.

Nuanced character study of a sleazeball.
If you like Cassavettes' stuff, you will love this finally developed tale of an aging strip club owner in 1970s LA. If you would like to try this American original, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie might be the best place to start as it is possibly Cassevettes' most accessible film.

One of the best I have seen
This is a great starter into John Cassavette's films. If you have not seen any of his films, start here. Casavettes has made a masterpiece that truly looks at life and not the glorification of life. No Hollywood over-dramatisation here. The people are sleeze and yet out of the sleeze comes a story. This must have been a very big influence to Quentin Tarantino in making Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.