Taiwan’s ‘Goddamned Asura’ Was Crafted By “Constantly Having This Conversation About Who’s Right And Who’s Wrong”, Duo Says – Contenders International

04.12.2022 - 03:23 / deadline.com

Lou Yi-an’s Goddamned Asura begins with chilling smartphone footage of an expressionless young man opening fire on a busy night market. In a surprising move, it immediately rewinds to the events leading up to the shooting, introducing a core group of characters whose lives will be changed by it. Even more unexpected, though, is the film’s third act, which essentially posits a Sliding Doors-style “What if?” hypothesis.

Although the killer and his story are fictional, the story has its roots in recent events in Taiwan, as Lou explained at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International award-season event.

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“In 2014,” he said, “there was an incident where a guy conducted random killings on the M.R.T. [Taipei’s public transport system]. This was quite sensational in Taiwanese society, and two years later the perpetrator was executed. At the time, there were a lot of reports by journalists about this incident, and I watched all of them. At the same time, there was a huge debate about whether we should abolish the death penalty. Lots of questions started to float in my mind: did the perpetrator really deserve to die?”

Unsurprisingly, this was not an easy script to finesse, given its unusual structure and shifting perspectives. “We co-wrote the script for about two to three years,” said Lou’s co-writer Singing Chen. “Our process was to constantly debate with each other. We were constantly having conversations about who’s right and who’s wrong — who is the villain and who is the good guy? — and about the core values of being human.”

Lou also revealed that the night-market footage was actually filmed on location. “We shot the film in a real market while it was still