The cool, tight-lipped killer-for-cash that Clint Eastwood played in the Sergio Leone Westerns of the 1960s has become an icon and, in his many imitators, something of a cliche.
In "Mr. Long," a thriller directed by the single-named Sabu that premiered in competition at last year's Berlin film festival, title star Chang Chen reminds us why this character became so popular in the first place.
Chang, who starred in the 1991 Edward Yang classic "A Brighter Summer Day" and has since worked with Wong Kar-wai, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Ang Lee, does not try to out-Clint Clint. Instead he humanizes Mr. Long, a Taiwanese hit man who finds himself on the run in Japan. He does this more with attitudes and gestures than words — his Long is not a talker, to put it mildly. Nonetheless, he has a charisma that carries the film through its nothing-much-happening longueurs.