Back in late July, we were informed of the slate of films that would be playing at this year’s 68th Venice Film Festival. It’s a wonderful-looking lineup, including such high-profile Oscar-contenders as George Clooney‘s The Ides of March, Tomas Alfredson‘s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Roman Polanski‘s Carnage, and Steve McQueen‘s Hunger follow-up Shame, which could turn out to be a dark horse. Since that announcement, however, one more “In Competition” slot has been up for grabs, and it has now officially been secured by Vengeance director Johnnie To‘s Life Without Principle. [Twitter via The Playlist]
Along with this announcement comes a trailer and poster for the film, both of which can be seen below. The film’s principal actors include Lau Ching Wan, Richie Jen, Denise Ho, and Terence Yin.
Life Without Principle tells the story of three characters: an ordinary bank teller turned financial analyst is forced to sell high risk securities to her customers in order to meet her sales target; a small-time thug delves into the futures index hoping to earn easy money to post bail for a buddy in trouble with the law; a straight-arrow Police inspector, who has always enjoyed his middle income lifestyle, is suddenly desperate for money when his wife puts a down payment on a luxury flat she can’t afford and his dying father wants him to look after a young half-sister he never knew he had.
Three little people who are in dire need of money for the predicaments in their respective lives have nothing in common until a bag of stolen money worth $5m pops up and lands them in an intricate situation that forces them into making soul searching decisions about right and wrong and everything in between on the morality scale.
Venice Film Festival kicks off at the end of the month.
Do you think the film has a chance to contend at Venice? What do you think of the trailer?