Desertman84 The Air I Breathe is the directorial film debut of Korean-American filmmaker Jieho Lee, who co-wrote the script with Bob DeRosa. In this powerful film, four very different people on the edge of desperation are unexpectedly linked by their destinies. A top-notch cast featuring Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Kevin Bacon, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Emile Hirsch unforgettably brings to life the stories of a clairvoyant gangster, a rising pop star, an unlikely bank robber and a doctor desperate to save the love of his life.The concept of the film is based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones – Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love. The proverb speaks of these emotions, not as isolated fragments of feelings, but as elements that make up the whole of the human existence. Each of the four protagonists is based on one of the four emotions; and like the proverb their paths are inextricably linked to each other, akin to the Fingers of a hand.A powerful crime boss, Fingers, subtly controls the destinies of four people whose circumstances have brought them to a crossroads in their lives. A quiet business executive is told that an upcoming horse race has been rigged and bets everything he has on his belief that the story is true. A noted pop singer discovers her career is hanging in the balance when she's forced to sever ties with her manager. A doctor must set aside a physician's traditional guidelines when circumstances demand he treat the woman he loves after a serious accident. And a criminal has a powerful vision of the future, but can't decide if his premonitions are to be trusted. Every so often a crime drama with delusions of existential grandeur comes ambling down the pike. Sometimes a philosophically-inclined filmmaker strikes cinematic gold. If video director Jieho Lee's erratic debut falls short of that estimable mark, he can't be faulted for lack of ambition. It is a jumbled Independent production that accomplishes little save for the squandering of a talented cast,who themselves could not help the film reach its potential.Each story has its moments but it lacks an overarching vision.Added to that,a stew of cheap irony, ponderous but meaningless allegory, violence and pretension, the movie is all borrowed style and calculated pandering. It does, however, get more ludicrous by the minute.But inconsistent acting and clunky dialogue aside, it infuses conventional genre thrills with introspection to intermittently engaging effect.

alexander-s-petrov What is this I don't even ... I think it's pretty general, and nothing is wrong with the idea at all - vanity filmmaking is as legitimate as vanity publishing or printing out large posters of your girlfriend and hanging them on the walls in your house, but THAT ... what is that?Not only there is no plot whatsoever if you can call the random jumbling of events that; the whole setup makes as much sense as a drug-induced trip of lonely unpopular teenager whose mother's appetite for birth tourism landed him in a country where people couldn't pronounce his name right.A clairvoyant mobster apparently out of some manga series; a singer in an abusive relationship (hahaha a million times) with a gangster, then a stuttering bank employee and finally a doctor in a stone cold yakuza disposition - this may be material for a therapy session, and it certainly has no place on the big screen.I congratulate all involved on the effort and I feel sorry for the actors who got shanghai'd into this; at least the pay was right I hope.

highwaytourist This is one of those movies which should have been great only to become a disaster. It's based partly on the Chinese proverb that four emotions form the foundation of life, Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love, and those emotions are embodied by four very shallow characters. However, the real foundations of this film are Anger, Frustration, and Pretentiousness. Anyway, the four foundations are used to create four stories which interlock, no doubt inspired by Pulp Fiction. The first story features a timid and stressed-out investment banker identified as Happiness (Forest Whittaker) who has worked hard and played by the rules, only to have a lonely and frustrating life to show for it. So when he overhears his supervisors planning to bet on a horse race with an insider's tip, he bets heavily on the horse, only to lose it all and owe huge money to a classy but ruthless gangster named Fingers (Andy Garcia, who has played this kind of role more times than I can remember). One of Whittaker's more successful clients is identified as Pleasure (Brenden Fraser), a gangster's enforcer of Fingers' who has the ability to see pieces of the future. That ability is not entirely a blessing, as the visions are hard to interpret and take the spontaneity and surprise out of life. Well, Fraser's character is hired by Fingers to babysit his obnoxious gangster wannabe nephew Tony (Emile Hirsch), who of course makes trouble and angers powerful people, which results in Fraser's being beaten up severely. Meanwhile, the third story is about a beautiful but ditsy and vain pop singer named Trista (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who is also identified as "Sorrow." Her sorrow comes when her manager embezzles from her and sells her contract to Fingers to pay off an overwhelming gambling debt. Fingers sees this as a chance to go legit, but he clearly plans to work Trista to death while taking most of her earnings until her fifteen minutes of fame is over. In the last story, Love is a doctor (Kevin Bacon) who's in love with his best friend's wife, a beautiful epidemiologist (Julie Delpy) who gets bitten by a lethal snake and needs a blood transfusion from a rare blood type or she'll die. Did you get all that? A big problem is that all of characters behave in ways so stupid, it's impossible to care about them. It gets even more infuriating because they are forced to react to coincidences that are improbable in a way that's science fiction. There are also a number of lines featuring fortune cookie philosophy and existential angst that are meant to be profound but only evoke sneers from intelligent people. Is there anything good about this film? Well, Jieho Lee proves to be a technically competent director. Also, the talented actors do what they can with their cardboard roles. As a result, there are some attractive shots and a few isolated scenes work. But these minor virtues are overwhelmed by the stupidity and pretentiousness of the script.

Melissa Mendelson If we could see our future, what would we see? Would we realize that all our hard work, dedication with study would lead to a life within four, small walls? Would the tragedy of our past linger with each step forward? Would regret dig in for what we could not change, and would we love with all our heart, knowing that it would be returned to sender? Would happiness remain a dream, drifting like beauty across the butterfly wings, daring us to risk all to be free, but what cost would we pay? How hard would we fall? We take another step forward, walking the streets of journey, and trying to understand who we are, but what we can't change ends up changing us, turning the wheel to destiny. And brilliance is the sun ending sorrow and igniting hope, and as one chapter ends, a new life begins. And we savor the bitter but sweet air that we breathe.