Nothing Can't Be Undone By a HotPot
[info headline="Release date"]7 December 2018[/info]
[info headline="Language"]English, Hindi[/info]
[info headline="IMDb Rating"]7.4[/info]
[info headline="Genre"]Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction[/info]
[info headline="Cast"]Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson[/info]
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In case you’re wondering, “Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a
HotPot” is not only the best movie title of the year so far, but also a
no-frills Chinese whodunit about a pile of stolen cash, a human body, and a
long line of dirty laundry. The cash and the body present themselves early on
in this sugary Agatha Christie-style mystery, but the laundry gets unpacked at
its own unhurried pace.
A cryptic text message summons four friends, who meet in a
combination mahjong/Chinese opera bar run by the group’s leader, a self-serious
chiseler who calls himself Nine Cakes (Yu Qian). The assembled conspirators
don’t know much about each other since they’d only previously communicated
through an internet forum. They still quickly commit to what, on its face,
seems like a simple heist: breaking into a soon-to-be demolished apartment and
then boosting a suitcase that’s hidden behind the bathroom wall.
With mahjong-themed nicknames like Fortune (Ailei Yu) and
Chicken (Yang Mi), the group’s members struggle to remain on top of their
constantly escalating scheme. Because it’s not just one suitcase, but two, and
the second one contains a body, and it may not be dead yet. The bag-snatchers
hunch over a hotpot table and review their options backstage at the opera.
The irregular pace and unsteady tone of “Nothing Can’t Be
Undone By a Hotpot” might seem manic if you compare one scene to the next. The
thrill of discovery still matters more than any given twist, doled out with
enough panache to make a two-hour-plus caper fly by. That’s not nothing in a
movie that’s more about yarn-spinning than wool-gathering. Each new twist
inadvertently sets up the next while seemingly announcing itself with
unrehearsed spontaneity. Because it’s not a random suitcase full of loot and the
guy in the other bag isn’t just a mark. The trick is to let the story cook at
its own pace, bubbling and overflowing with such regularity that by the time
the movie’s over, the most impressive thing isn’t the integrity of the plot,
but the seamlessness of its presentation.
The frantic but easy interplay between the four principle
cast members—plus the body, Director Fu (Tian Yu)—handily distinguishes
“Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a Hotpot” from other recent programmers. Dialogue
isn’t elevated to precious post-Tarantino levels of dramatic bombast; it's more
like unassuming links in a perpetually spun-out chain of exhaustively discussed
events. The characters in this movie don’t simply talk, but also perform for
and with each other. They have secrets that they need to share, and they also
happen to work well together, even when they’re stepping on each other’s toes.
“Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a Hotpot” has big escape room energy, is what I’m
trying to say.
There are some outstanding one-liners, like when Seventy
Grand (Li Jiu Xiao) sees a pile of loot and gasps: “Poverty limited my
imagination.” But most of what’s charming about this movie is its characters’
use of dialogue as a frustrated negotiating tactic. I’m still laughing at an
exchange from early in the movie when the group briefly considers what to do
with Fu’s body. Seventy Grand suggests that they “Dismember it!” And after a
short pause, Nine Cakes solemnly agrees. They then discuss how much of the body
each person should cut up and who among them gets to use the big cleaver, which
leads Nine Cakes to insist, “This is what I can take at most. No arms.”
“Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a Hotpot” constantly threatens
to become a darker story but pointedly never goes there. It’s more frothy and
playful than not, which might make it a hard sell for genre aficionados who
prefer their mysteries to be grim and/or dark. You still shouldn’t expect
prefab cynicism from a movie where Chinese Opera performers occasionally
interrupt our thieves’ conversation. They barge into the story through locked
doors and comment inanely about what’s really going on at the back of the combination
opera theater/mahjong bar. These opera performers are always wrong, by the way.
They also only perform for themselves, as they announce with their clueless,
stentorian tones of voice. By contrast, Nine Cakes’ group always plays to an
audience of four, with an unexpected fifth player in tow.
Teamwork is the real draw in “Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a
Hotpot,” so it’s pretty easy to enjoy the movie on its own undemanding terms.
You shouldn’t watch this movie to see where it goes, but for the pleasure of
being taken for a ride. A sequel is teased, but only in a pre-credits outtake.
I’d still gladly come back for more, so long as the same crew shows up, too.
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