This Thai-Japanese co-production met with widespread critical acclaim garnering multiple domestic awards and the Upstream prize at the Venice film festival.

Kenji, a Japanese librarian working in Bangkok, follows an uptight, obsessive routine broken up by his occasional, half-hearted, suicide attempts. After his yakuza brother is murdered, Kenji forms an odd couple union with free-spirited Thai bargirl Noi, whose sister has been killed in a car accident. Their budding relationship is endangered by the circling presence of Noi’s ex-boyfriend and some Japanese yakuza out for revenge.

Drawing comparisons with Chungking Express, Last Life in the Universe is a beguiling, offbeat romance that drifts gently between Thai, English and Japanese. In the lead, Asano Tadanobu is one of Japan’s leading film presences but his counterpart Sinitta Boonyasak was making her film debut. Christopher Doyle, the foremost chronicler of modern Asian imagery, adds his dream-like cinematography to the mix.