Author: KickingK
Date: Tuesday November 11th, 2025
Viva Macau
Colin Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a Baccarat player, mired in debt, trying to play himself out of a hole. Fala Chen plays Dao Ming, a hostess and loan shark who helps out addicted gamblers with their short term liquidity problem.
Set in Macau, the scenery and cinematography is stunning. The grandeur of the tackiness, the beauty of the monuments to gaucheness. This films captures the concept of greed better than anything I’ve seen. The gluttony, the hunger, to consume, to win, to ingest, constantly, infinitely, never satisfied, never sated, always chasing, always needing.
Volker Bertelmann's music is terrific. Playful and propulsive. It’s the sound of Satan getting behind you and giving you a shove in the back.
Unfortunately, the film pivots around the relationship between Doyle and Dao Ming. But her character is little more than a thumbnail, a sketch. Her story isn’t fleshed out or explained. So their relationship never makes sense, either financially or emotionally.
Consequently, when the revelation happens, it carries no weight.
If the film had been more of a double hander, focusing equally on Fala Chen and Farrell, it could have worked. But now I’m tilting into reviewing the film I’d wish I’d seen.
The film I actually watched is stunningly presented but missing a core.
One quick coda to this review: I'm really appreciating the extra mile that some film makers are going with their end credits. Both this and the recent Caught Stealing have added small amounts of well thought out animation to the credit reel at the end. Mix in a terrific choice of music and it ends the film on a little flourish. Given the turgid state of tv opening and closing credits, where every show has the exact same lazy formula, it's a little point of differentiation. A nice way to show that a little extra care was taken.
It feels like the end credits have been reclaimed after the Marvel era where they were just a thing that added gaps between the 'to be continued' sections.
Not only that, but in this case, somebody in the crew has clearly watched Medusa Deluxe (otherwise known as the film with the greatest end credit sequence ever1) and thought "We'll have some of that". Cracking stuff.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
1. Seriously, watch Medusa Deluxe, the film is weird and wonderful and the end credits are incredible.
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