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IFDB Review: Killing a Chinese Bookie:

MCP

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Ever since he joined the fanediting community, Gatos has been known for thinking outside the box for his projects. And I'm very glad he does! I love when people edit stuff other than the usual blockbuster candidates. And I love it more when they do such a good job as in this case. Gatos' firstling took an arthouse character piece and turned it into a lean, mean, to the point gangster film. Which is more than okay for me, as I love both arthouse character pieces and lean, mean, to the point gangster films. Contrary to Gatos' opinion I think the original '76 cut of this, the one I watched, is a fine film, if a bit slow. However, the edit is equally fine for different reasons. Gone are a lot of amazing acting moments from Gazzara and others, but there's not a dull moment in this cut and moves at a great flow. It doesn't replace the original for me but it's a welcome alternate. However, I must point out a few things I didn't think worked that well. One is the fadeout-fadein at 0:19:02 (from Cosmo thanking the chauffeur to the gangsters arriving to the club at night) that others have mentioned, and which clashes with the overall style of the film. What prevented a simple straight cut? Other is, I think at least a little bit of one of the earlier club performances should have been preserved, as now the very first one we see is "After the Ball is Over", and having no earlier reference we don't get why Cosmo says "What the hell kind of number is this?" And the third is the quite puzzling (to me) decision to eliminate all references to Cosmo's wound until literally the last shot. Is it supposed to have been inflicted by the warehouse gunman in this cut? Or is it just an attempt to a surprise twist ending? Comes kind of out of nowhere. But overall, I enjoyed the whole thing a lot, and even some stuff I loved in the original and was cut from here, such as a lot of Tim Carey's most eccentric bits, wasn't really needed so I wasn't too sad to see go. Audio and video quality? Top notch, as top notch was the editing job itself (well, aside from that fade...) I hope more viewers decide to check this one out, not everything has to be a strict diet of Star Wars prequels, right? If you like gangster movies and 1970s filmmaking, give this one a go.

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