''Long Hello and Short Goodbye'' is a 1999

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combi ...

produced by

Studio Hamburg Letterbox Filmproduktion A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial desi ...

and co-authored by Jeff Vintar and .

Plot summary

The film presents a recently released safe-cracker named Ben, and an undercover police agent named Melody. Melody's job is to dupe Ben into another job so that he can be put away once more by her sinister and ambitious boss Kahnitz. But complications arise when the talkative cop falls for the taciturn gangster. The film features a complex neo-noir flashback structure that centers on seemingly dead characters littering the bloody floor of a fancy apartment. As the story progresses, we find out that some of these dead people are not dead at all, more are hiding in the closet, and slowly the pieces of the puzzle come together in classic film noir fashion, but with a distinctly modern edge.

Production history

Based in an original English-language screenplay by ''

I, Robot ''I, Robot'' is a fixup (compilation) novel of science fiction short stories or essays by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines '' Super Science Stories'' and ''Astounding Science Fiction'' bet ...

'' writer Jeff Vintar, the English-language version of Vintar's screenplay struggled to reach the screen for many years. The work was under a variety of producers and production companies; hence, the script was under option for a very long time. At one time,

Gustavo Mosquera Gustavo is the Latinate form of a Germanic male given name with respective prevalence in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. It has been a common name for Swedish monarchs since the reign of Gustav Vasa. It is derived from Gustav /ˈɡʊstɑːv ...

, who had directed '' Moebius'', was slated as its director, with

John Woo John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gu ...

and partner

Terence Chang Terence Chang Chia-Chen () is a Hong Kong and American film producer. Career Chang is one of John Woo's long time friends and favoured producers. Chang produced the 1997 action hit '' Face/Off'' and '' Mission: Impossible 2''. Following the ...

producing under their

Lion Rock Lion Rock, or less formally Lion Rock Hill, is a mountain in Hong Kong. It is located in Sha Tin District, between Kowloon Tong of Kowloon and Tai Wai of the New Territories, and is high. The peak consists of granite covered sparsely by sh ...

banner. The screenplay that eventually made it to the screen was developed by the production company

Circle of Confusion In optics, a circle of confusion (CoC) is an optical spot caused by a cone of light rays from a lens not coming to a perfect focus when imaging a point source. It is also known as disk of confusion, circle of indistinctness, blur circle, or ...

. Shortly before the movie's release, the film's producers "got cold feet" and re-edited the film to give it a

linear narrative Narrative structure is a literary element generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer. The narrative text structures are the plot and the ...

, which became the version that made it to the screen.

Cast

Critical reception

The film became a cult favorite among noir buffs, and received a positive review in ''Variety'' that predicted that the film would play in broad-minded festivals around the world, and that genre fans would "lap it up". The final editing that gave the film its

is said to have diluted its "effect", which resulted in its polarizing critics and audience members alike.

Futther reading

References

External links

* 1999 films 1999 crime thriller films German crime thriller films 1990s German-language films Films shot in Hamburg German neo-noir films 1990s German films {{1990s-Germany-film-stub