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Boarding Gate

Play trailer Poster for Boarding Gate R Released Mar 21, 2008 1h 33m Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
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33% Tomatometer 46 Reviews 20% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
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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Boarding Gate

Boarding Gate

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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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Critics Reviews

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Joshua Rothkopf Time Out Rated: 2/5 Nov 17, 2011 Full Review Nick Schager Lessons of Darkness Distills genre tropes (and their consequent pleasures) to their lean, potent essence. Rated: A- Nov 30, 2008 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Full Review 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 Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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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 Full Review Audience Member So bad, and outright confusing, I turned it off. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member Not sure which is worse, watching this or going through US immigation control! Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review 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 Full Review Audience Member One of those films that I could wait to be over. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review 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 Full Review Read all reviews
Boarding Gate

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

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
Producer
François Margolin
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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