A little touch of everything
The Odd One Dies, with its odd title, its odd characters, its odd scenes, is a typical work from the Milkyway at the moment when they were trying to rewrite the genres with their own style. This time, you can a bit of Wong Kar-Wai style, you add more humor, then a conventional killer story, a bit of romance, and you've got it.
The Odd One Dies succeeds because there is a very talented person behind everything. Johnnie To producer. Wai Ka-Fai scriptwriter. Patrick Yau director. Raymond Wong composer. Takeshi Kaneshiro and Carmen Lee actors. The movie successfully mixes several genres around a classical triad movie (a young wanderer is hired to kill a guy), with a very second degree humor, an original romance, a surprising music. Takeshi seems to come back from Fallen Angels, with a very strange character who doesn't like to talk. The performance doesn't really come from this copy of the Wong Kar-Wai's character, but rather by his hability to let the viewers understand his inner feelings from his cool behavior. On the other hand, Carman Lee is much more expressive, and manages also to hit the target: she is sexy even with her dirty clothes, she is sad but she is funny, she is deeply hurted but she is strong... The romance really makes the movie reach another level, a romance between two odd characters understanding each other.
In few words, a wonderful little movie, quite odd of course, but successful in its originality and with an original taste of romance. Easily one of my preferred Milkyway movie.