Boarding Gate

R

Released Mar 21, 2008

1h 33m

Mystery & Thriller

List

33%

46 Reviews

Tomatometer

20%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

A sordid and complex series of events unfolds when an ex-prostitute (Asia Argento) becomes involved with a couple in Hong Kong.

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Critics Consensus

Boarding Gate has little substance beneath its faux-thriller surface, and marks a step down from director Olivier Assayas' usual work.

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Audience Member

One line summary: Female agent of crime bosses services her adrenaline addiction while being dogged by treachery. ---------------------------------------------- Sandra and Miles have a long talk about their long, slow dissolve into a permanent breakup. She goes off to work with Sue and Lester Wang. She kills Miles for Lester Wang. Then she's off to yet another gig in Hong Kong under a new identification. Her friend Lisa goes to Hong Kong as well, but separately. Sandra finally gets to the appointed place, and finds Lisa murdered. Whom to trust? She kills two would-be assassins, then goes on the run. Sandra talks to Sue, who is also in Hong Kong. Sue says Sandra can meet Lester but Sandra meets Sue instead. They talk about Lester, and his cheating on Sue. They talk as well about Sue's expertise with Beijing versus Lester's being limited to Europe and Hong Kong. By this time, there is a warrant for Sandra's arrest for her murder of the two assassins she killed. She has no ID that will allow her to fly or register at a hotel. Plus, Sue drugged her. Ah, jealousy. She awakes in a dwelling that one of Lester's friends owns. She gives Sandra passport, tickets, and money for a trip to Shanghai, where a job awaits her. Lester is not happy with Sue. Sandra sees Lester meet with Andrei, Miles' long time partner. So, she killed Miles for Andrei. Nice. What will she do with this knowledge? Smells like a sequel, but I do not see one in IMDB. -------Scores--------- Cinematography: 6/10 A bit blurry and soft in focus for perhaps 80% of the film. The camera work was jumpy for far too many minutes. Sound: 4/10 Better than the video. However, sound also transmits information; well, sometimes it does. The Netflix version had unacceptable problems. There were dozens of lines in French, with no translation in the subtitles. This was not good. There were five times as many lines in Chinese, also with no English in the subtitles. That was even worse. Acting: 6/10 I liked the performances of Kelly Lin and Michael Madsen, but Asia Argento was more bizarre than interesting. Screenplay: 4/10 This is a nice 10 minute short done in 106 minutes. The conversations between Miles and Sandra went on forever. Thirty plus minutes of those conversations could have been cut. The conversations between Sandra and Sue go on forever.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

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Audience Member

So bad, and outright confusing, I turned it off.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

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Audience Member

Not sure which is worse, watching this or going through US immigation control!

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

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Audience Member

International intrigue and suspense... that doesn't go anywhere or answer any of its questions.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/17/23

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Audience Member

One of those films that I could wait to be over.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

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Audience Member

Boring. Forced. Huge scenes of pointless, sordid dialogue between characters that are supposed to be darkly compelling (I assume) but just come off as drab and irritating. On top of that the whole movie is convoluted and confusing-- and there's just no point to trying to figure it out when you don't give a crap about anything that's happening in the first place.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

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Olivier Assayas

Director

Asia Argento

Sandra

Michael Madsen

Miles Rennberg

Carl Ng

Lester Wang

Kelly Lin Hsi-Lei

Sue

Joana Preiss

Lisa

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Joshua Rothkopf

Time Out

Rated: 2/5

Nov 17, 2011

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Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Distills genre tropes (and their consequent pleasures) to their lean, potent essence.

Rated: A-

Nov 30, 2008

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Mick LaSalle

San Francisco Chronicle

The main thing interesting about Boarding Gate is the spectacle of Assayas' effort -- the attitude and the international backdrop -- not the story itself.

Rated: 2/4

Apr 11, 2008

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Troy Patterson

Spin

Combining elements of a D-grade erotic thriller and a deconstructed international thriller, Boarding Gate proves duly snazzy and sleazy - kinda skanky in a highfalutin' way.

Sep 5, 2018

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Steve Erickson

Gay City News

"Boarding Gate" is mired in secondhand, vaguely political notions about globalization and unwilling to really let itself go to extremes.

Mar 9, 2018

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Daniel Kasman

MUBI

In the spirit of the financial and creative constraints of B-movies, Assayas has taken his latest film [and] filled it with bare characters moving briskly across limited landscapes, and gotten a skimmed, thinned result of considerable kinetic emptiness.

Nov 17, 2017

Full Review

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Synopsis

A sordid and complex series of events unfolds when an ex-prostitute (Asia Argento) becomes involved with a couple in Hong Kong.

Director: Olivier Assayas
Screenwriter: Olivier Assayas
Distributor: Magnolia Pictures
Rating: R (Some Drug Material|Sexual Content|Language|Violence)
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: Chinese
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 21, 2008, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 18, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $49.3K
Runtime: 1h 33m

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