Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Nuanced character study of a sleazeball.
If you like Cassavettes' stuff, you will love this finally developed tale of an aging strip club owner in 1970s LA. If you would like to try this American original, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie might be the best place to start as it is possibly Cassevettes' most accessible film.

Brilliant and sadly neglected film
"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is one of my all time favourite films and I bought it the moment I saw it was on DVD. However the DVD is quite dissapointing considering it is not in widescreen (even though it doesn't really suffer from cropping) and the picture and sound quality are quite dodgy. Nevertheless it is a brilliant and powerful film that contains an excellent performance from Ben Gazzara as well as some very memorable scenes and visuals. This is surely a films that deserves a place in any true film buffs DVD collection.

One of the best I have seen
This is a great starter into John Cassavette's films. If you have not seen any of his films, start here. Casavettes has made a masterpiece that truly looks at life and not the glorification of life. No Hollywood over-dramatisation here. The people are sleeze and yet out of the sleeze comes a story. This must have been a very big influence to Quentin Tarantino in making Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

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