‘Love is a Gun’: A spellbinding vision of yearning for freedom

The past comes flooding into the present in Lee Hong-Chi’s (李鸿其 Lǐ Hóngqí) visually arresting mood piece Love Is a Gun.

The Hong Kong-Taiwan co-production premiered earlier this week at Venice Critics’ Week, an independent parallel section of the prestigious Venice Film Festival, running until September 9. It shares titles with a 1994 cryptic erotic thriller starring Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts as a troubled crime-scene photographer, but there the similarity ends.

The characters in Lee’s story, co-written by himself, has some parallels with two other recent Chinese-language films, namely Gaey Wa’r (2021) and Absence (2023), which premiered at Cannes and Berlinale, respectively. Played by Lee himself, Sweet Potato has recently finished a prison stretch for shooting someone while working for a “Big Boss” that he’s never met or talked to. Now making meager earnings by renting umbrellas at the beach, he attempts to break free from the vicious cycle of his past criminal life, only to discover that it isn’t so simple.

His girlfriend ignores and distrusts him. His mother begs for his help in paying off a gambling debt. His friends from a meth-infused, gun-toting past life taunt him for letting prison turn him into a coward. He interviews for jobs but is told that he needs a “Good Citizen Certificate” to prove a clean criminal record. He wants to sell his countryside house and move to Taipei but can’t get a good price for it. Much like the tortoise he keeps as a pet in a glass tank, he is isolated from the rest of society.

The only person who offers the ex-convict a sense of calmness amid the emotional turmoil is his childhood friend Seven. For Sweet Potato, however, returning to the dark underbelly of Taipei seems to be the only option when his old pal Maozi shows up with a debt-collecting gig for him. But things inevitably take a violent turn and Sweet Potato realizes he’s still living under the manipulative invisible hand of the Big Boss.

Sprinkled with flashes of brilliance, this atmospheric drama is a character study centering on Sweet Potato. The rest of the cast have little to no prior acting experience, and their characters play a rather perfunctory role in the story. Fortunately, the film doesn’t overstay its welcome, clocking out at just 81 minutes.

Lee artfully shows his protagonist’s longing for a sense of control over his own life. In a few cathartic scenes showcasing skillful visual command, Sweet Potato suddenly runs into the open sea or lies down on grass to stare into the sky. Cinematographer Zhū Yìngróng 朱映蓉 opts for a 4:3 aspect ratio — pay attention to when and why it changes in one scene — to create a claustrophobic frame which visually conveys Sweet Potato’s feeling of entrapment. The effect is all the starker when contrasted with the spellbinding natural scenery, whose countryside greens and beach blues are enhanced via striking color grading.

Love Is a Gun is produced by Shàn Zuǒlong 单佐龙, who previously led the production on Kaili Blues (2015) and Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018), both directed by Bì Gàn 毕赣, one of the most talented arthouse auteurs in the world. That fact alone is enough to let potential audiences of Lee’s film know what they should expect in terms of production value, glimpses of which can be seen in the trailer.

Lee emerged as a talented performer in 2015 for his acting debut in Chang Tso-chi’s (张作骥 Zhāng Zuòjì) Berlinale-premiering Thanatos, Drunk. With Love Is a Gun, which will surely travel to other festivals after Venice, he proves himself as a promising filmmaker with a mature vision.