![]() ![]() In reality the central location is Coober Pedy – the bizarre South Australian town where citizens live in underground dugouts to escape the blistering heat. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning ![]() But Baker transcends stereotype, bringing sleepy-eyed and sorrowful gravitas, with lots of thousand-yard stares and a slow way of speaking, as if Hurley is aware that time moves differently in this part of the world. The addled cop is a bit of a trope: they may wrestle with the demon drink (like Aaron Pedersen in Goldstone), be afflicted by physical ailments (Brendan Cowell’s tinnitus-suffering constable in Noise) or have a traumatic, personal connection to the scene of the crime (Eric Bana in The Dry). The film is set in the titular – fictitious – opal mining town, where Hurley arrives to ask questions about the unsolved murder case of an Indigenous girl, Charlotte Hayes, 20 years before. At one point a child accurately observes that he looks more like a drug dealer than a member of the force. Then again, the slow developments of characters can be almost forgiven by one of the most gritty fight scenes in HK cinema in the finale and the sadness and suffering from each of the main casts can be finally released and cleansed through the heavy rain and blood.Simon Baker leads the cast as Travis Hurley, a tough, sorrowful, heroin-injecting detective with a buzzcut and a downbeat, Walter White-ish demeanour. This is also why the antagonist felt a bit underdeveloped, especially through earlier scenes that he would have been a very suspenseful character. Indeed, the "hand" motif could have been further explored and drill for deeper sub text through out the film. The build up of the antagonist is probably one of the weaker point since all the suspense and industrial garbage land setting, leading up to the finale, could have been more meaningful if only the audience can know more about his origin and back story. We would want to know a bit more of their past to gain even more sympathy on their pain. The English title does it justice to prescribe the state of mind of characters, whether it is Liu who mentally broke down because of his injured wife or Wang Tao, the young poor girl who is literally crying for her redemption, or the new smart looking Ren Kai who suffer from physical pain from his wisdom teeth (hence the Chinese title). The set design of film alone would have worth the trip to the theatre but oddly enough it was the characters' development which feel a bit of a let down. Gone are the glorious and glamour of high rises and luxury apartments, replaced the harsh realty of daily grinning in an industrial, often chaotic mix of poor areas with out casts who had long been neglected. Then perhaps, it could have also been the smell of real Hong Kong. It is as if the movie theatre can release a fragrant of the movie, it would be, as what the main protagonist described, the smell of rubbish. The movie seems to actively asking audience not only looking at the stunning yet very harsh black and white visuals, but to sense the desperation of the characters, the smell of non-stop rain from trashy industrial buildings, as well as the out casts of our society but also the very places that they had to put up with. There were in the past many fine example of local production of gruesome and gritty crime stories and yet, Limbo pushes the envelope even further. Limbo is probably of one of the boldest attempt to put HK well-known crime drama along with the film noir genre. ![]()
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