Second Generation

Shane O'Sullivan shot this first feature on DigiBeta for £20,000. Then he persuaded Barco, one of a handful of companies manufacturing digital projectors, that he could showcase their equipment if they'd lend him a projector and hire London's ABC Piccadilly for a week. Regrettably, his ingenuity didn't stretch to arranging a press preview, so we can't comment on the system, only how the film looks on VHS tape. It's like a soap opera with a fetish for fluorescent filters - a bohemian fable, set in and around Brick Lane, in the hipster manner of Stranger Than Paradise or Mystery Train. Lili (Hanayo), a free spirit in pigtails and mini skirts, has fled an arranged HK marriage to be with 'Bobby'. She bumps into Go (Shigetomo), a young Japanese detective living in a spare warehouse flat in E1. He lets her sleep on the couch and they go their separate ways, then he gets his first case - to find a runaway Chinese girl. O'Sullivan has made a thoroughly 'London' film, yet there isn't an Anglo-Saxon in the cast. It's well scored and marked by nice touches, but it's unevenly acted and too flimsy to generate anything approaching suspense.