PARTNERS IN CRIME

共犯

Directed by Chang Jung-chi

Asia Pop! / Taiwan / 2014 / drama, thriller / 89 mins / Mandarin with Chinese, English subtitles / HD / West Coast Premiere

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Watch Trailer

PARTNERS IN CRIME

UCSD Calit2 Atkinson Hall Auditorium
Sat, Nov. 8, 2014 2:25 pm

Description

Official Selection, 2014 Toronto International Film Festival
Opening Night Film, 2014 Taipei Film Festival
Closing Night Film, 2014 Hong Kong Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival

Huang is used to getting beat up. Lin is not the social type. And Yeh puts up a tough-guy front but doesn’t exactly endear to any friends. The three teens are on their way to school when they stumble across the dying body of Wei-chiao, a classmate they barely know. It’s ruled a suicide, but the nagging uncertainty – perhaps imagined by the boys themselves – put the trio on a mission to figure out what happened to her.

How Wei-chiao died sets the mystery of PARTNERS IN CRIME off, but why these three boys care is the real question, and one that perhaps has much darker implications. They start telling lies and a diary becomes evidence of more than intent. Wei-chiao’s death is the reason for three loners to form a bond, but it also reveals the volatility of the high school social structure to begin with, in which all four students are a part.

Exploring much grimmer and more complex terrain than his beloved Touch of the Light, director Chang Jung-chi expands his fascination with the anguished restlessness of young people, and turns in one of the most mature and atmospheric Taiwanese youth film in recent years. –Brian Hu