Such a dark view of a multi-ethnic apartment building in New York City's lower east side. The tenants live with grime on the streets and are practically at war with each other, as one man shoots at the flower pots on another man's window sill because he's playing his music too loud. They decide to put their differences aside when a white case work accidentally dies after offering tepid advice to a woman with an abusive husband. She doesn't want the police around, and neither does anyone else, because of various criminal activities and immigration concerns. They decide to haul the body out of there and dump it in an abandoned building at night.
It's not bad as a premise and could have been "Chapter one" to a story, but the story is completely undeveloped from there. We don't learn anything about these people so they remain cartoon characters, borderline stereotypical. It was billed as a "satiric comedy," but it was hard for me to fathom what the humor was supposed to be. Just an interesting idea, and then nothing else. From looking into J. T. Takagi's other work, something like Bittersweet Survival (1982), Homes Apart: Korea (1991), or The Women Outside (1996) may be more meaty, and worth checking out instead.
It's not bad as a premise and could have been "Chapter one" to a story, but the story is completely undeveloped from there. We don't learn anything about these people so they remain cartoon characters, borderline stereotypical. It was billed as a "satiric comedy," but it was hard for me to fathom what the humor was supposed to be. Just an interesting idea, and then nothing else. From looking into J. T. Takagi's other work, something like Bittersweet Survival (1982), Homes Apart: Korea (1991), or The Women Outside (1996) may be more meaty, and worth checking out instead.