Film Name: 极道追踪 / Zodiac Killer / 極道追蹤
Such fleeting moments of drifting are all the sorrow and lamentation of treading foreign soil. The impulsive and impatient protagonist, A-Ben, came to Japan to study, yet skipped classes in a panic, choosing to become a street thug rather than contemplate trivialities and illusions. He hung out in bars with his friends and classmates, Zhang Zhi and Ming-Zai, hoping to make a name for himself in a different way. Zhang Zhi relentlessly searches for his displaced girlfriend Wei Dahuo, while Mingzai exhausts himself to become the brother-in-law of gang boss Ishikawa of the Sakura-mon-kai. For them, life and survival are merely a heretical backdrop rejected by mainstream discourse. Aben falls for Tielan, the most beautiful woman in the bar. In that instant, he believes his life has found tranquility and warmth beyond mere escape.
Yet Tielan’s affections lie with Asano, a mysterious man who offers her promises and hope. But his own life hangs by a thread—his boss has been murdered, and he faces relentless pursuit, unable to guarantee Tielan’s safety. Gangster pursuits—even well-trained bodies couldn’t escape society’s poison. Flowers bloomed to their fullest, yet the plum blossom’s fragrance remained elusive. After handing Tielan a tape containing gang-related matters, he bled to death.
Meimei and Tielan traveled from Jiangsu to Japan. After Meimei faced rejection from a man, she wailed at Tielan: “I’m not like you! You’re beautiful, you can earn money. I have nothing—only this man!” Yet ultimately, Tielan discovered her hanging corpse, while the man lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom was the very man Meimei had killed.
The sanguine and energetic Aben seemed perpetually cheerful until, after drinking, he vented his anguish while complaining about his mother’s nagging: “Back in China, only my mom liked me. Everyone else hated me because I hated studying. But I just couldn’t stand it! Before I even became an adult, I’d done everything an adult could do. Could those top students dare to do that? No way!”
In Ah Ben’s dormitory, Tie Lan exchanged clothes and headdresses with a mature madam. Standing tall, she evaded the gangsters’ pursuit. She had agreed with the gangsters to use white roses as bait and hand over the tape to them. Tragically, she was thrown onto the railway tracks by the gangsters and died. Little did they know that their love, once as constant as the dawn and dusk, would end without resolution.
Ming-zai saved Ah-ben, though he himself was a spinning top and a puppet. Yet, in a world of deceit and false fame, their friendship shone all the more precious. Ming-zai couldn’t comprehend Ah-ben’s selfless devotion to Tie-lan, knowing only that power would never treat people like mere pawns. Yet Ming-zai’s betrayal brought him the ultimate price—his life was crushed by a succession of vehicles. His supposed status as the brother-in-law of the Sakura Gate Association’s leader could not save him from this chaotic, superficial world.
Before Ming-zai’s death, he and Ah-bun witness a film crew amidst chaotic gang warfare. As rivalries erupt, they spot a trembling, beautiful young woman—none other than the girlfriend Zhang Zhi had been tracking.
The film is dark, intense, multi-layered, and narratively uncompromising. It evokes nostalgia for childhood radios while complicating bloated narratives and simplistic satire. Zhang Zhi’s fate, like the film’s opening, remains defined by his unwavering quest to find his girlfriend. As for the lonely A-ben, reduced to a fleeting shadow escaping the ship at sea, his pure heart cannot bear the soul-crushing burden of such chaos. The targets of pursuit are Chinese souls drifting like fallen leaves, their destinies and unspoken aspirations perhaps destined only to be buried in the biting, desolate chill of sorrow.
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