Assayas’s idea of a good, fun b-movie, except he forgot the “good” and the “fun.”

Asia Argento used to do demeaning sex work for powerful businessman Michael Madsen in order to turn him on and steal business secrets, and now after years she is back. Long push-pull dialogue segments prep us for twisty psychological intrigue, but nothing is ever especially twisty. Oh wait, Madsen has a big-money disagreement with Alex Descas (scientist/vampire-boyfriend in Trouble Every Day) but that couldn’t possibly be important. Asia pulls a gun and kills Madsen, planned by her new boyfriend Carl Ng, whose wife Kelly Lin (Zu Warriors, ex-wife/cop in Mad Detective) is in on the plot.

Girls still faint in movies:

But will Kelly really let Asia get away with the crime and leave with her husband? No, well, yes, sort of. Shocker: Alex Descas shows up at the end. It was his idea to kill Madsen! None of the surprises are surprising and none of the tension is tense… Demonlover had more twists in its last five minutes than this one can manage in ninety. If I’d seen this when it first came out I might have skipped Summer Hours, which would have been a mistake. Guess Assayas can be inconsistent but still makes great films.

It might hurt Michael Madsen’s feelings to be cast in what the director calls a b-movie, but he’s not any good, nor is Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon as a Hong Kong crime boss, and even Asia isn’t giving a knockout performance. I’d think Kelly Lin stole the show if there was much of a show to steal. Turns out most critics agreed with me – I didn’t re-check the reviews, probably got this confused with Go Go Tales in thinking it was well-loved.

Truth 24FPS agrees:

The project must have seemed promising, at least on paper – a globe trotting thriller with kinky sex, drug deals gone awry, murder, double and triple crosses, gun fights. But the film comes across as tepid, warmed over trash, and strangely, contains none of the kinetic forcefulness of the Hong Kong films Assayas champions. Assayas’ view of the world can at least partially be gleaned from his casting choices – an Italian who speaks French and English, with American and Chinese lovers, who travels from Paris to Hong Kong and eventually encountering a crime boss played by an indie rock icon. … The first half of the film consists of [Argento & Madsen] squaring off in increasingly repetitive encounters, with a kind of will they or won’t they do it sexual tension (answer: who cares?).

Asia Argento only liked the movie thiiiis much:

Dissent from G. Kenny:

His mastery of the camera and his always innovative approach to setting are constant, knotty pleasures; the Paris of the film’s first half is as alien to our recieved ideas of Paris as Godard’s Alphaville was, while his Hong Kong is a crumbling labyrinth where the only clues about which corner to turn are provided by cell phone rings.

But my favorite comment is from a forum poster on Premiere: “It made me want to punch Asia Argento in the face, but that would probably turn her on.”