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 open,” he said, “so to shoot a scene with such chaos and gunfire was very difficult. Not all of the people there were extras. There were some real tourists, as well as real vendors selling their stuff. We had to tell them [what was going on], and we did block off some of the areas to facilitate the shoot.
“That being said, it went quite well, as a result of the vendors, who were very cooperative, and also the actors, who were able to give their performances in a very short time.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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