The Boy and the Murderer
Mr. Long is not a man of many words. In fact, he hardly speaks at all. His talents lie more in… let’s say… practical work. Mr. Long is a Taiwanese contract killer. One of the good kind—someone who doesn’t ask questions when you give him a place, a time, and a target. Mr. Long simply does what needs to be done. And he’s pretty good at it. Usually.
After his assignment to kill a Yakuza boss goes terribly wrong, Mr. Long, played by Chen Chang, finds himself stranded in a remote Japanese town. With only five days to scrape together the money for his journey home, he receives unexpected help from a little boy named Jun, portrayed by Junyin Bai, and from the unsuspecting townspeople who have fallen in love with his culinary talents. With a makeshift food stand set up by his new friends, he begins cooking and selling Taiwanese noodle soup in front of the local Buddhist temple.
Trouble catches up with this unusual group when a drug dealer tracks down Jun’s mother Lily, brought to life by Yiti Yao, and through her eventually finds Mr. Long as well. Yet despite the inevitable confrontation with his violent past, Mr. Long will find it difficult to give up his new life.
A cold-hearted hitman is showered with altruistic love and forced to surrender to it. The Japanese director Sabu masters the art of blending the ordinary with the unexpected. With a sly touch, he sends his protagonists into unfamiliar territory that expands both their minds and their hearts. Mr. Long shows me that happiness can be found in the most unlikely places.
Mr. Long is difficult to assign to a single genre. With this film, Sabu created a drama whose unexpected moments are amusing, tragic, and shocking all at once—often at times when I least expect it. Just when I think I’ve figured the film out, around the next corner there’s either a clown, a chopped onion, or a knife that can hardly wait to strike again.
I wish for a happy ending for Mr. Long, Jun, and Lily—a place where the three of them can be happy and left alone by the merciless world. But the past of this small patchwork family catches up with them just when I’ve finally stopped resisting the tears welling up in my eyes.
In the end, I myself turn into one of those dreadful cliché viewers who laugh and cry at the same time—and I don’t even care. When Mr. Long looks out the café window to the other side of the street and his life suddenly gains a new meaning, I’m simply glad to have accompanied him on his turbulent journey of few words.