thank you for this - I love lists of obscure but great movies! There's a lot of dreck to sort through now. Did you ever see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie? My kid found it and we watched it last night and I think it fits your criteria.
Re: 'They really just want him to give up and go away, but instead he actually goes to the “somewhere else.” Over and over. No one will actually say “no,”'
Some years ago, the China and Japan correspondents for some media company switched positions and wrote about the experience. Your comment about "no one will actually say 'no'" reminds me of one of the stories from the former Japan correspondent, which he used to illustrate the throw-away aspect of Japanese culture. He had taken an item (a sweater?) with a broken zipper into a shop to get the zipper fixed or replaced. The guy behind the counter apparently didn't want to take the job, but he wouldn't say it directly. Instead, he kept talking about how it would be very difficult, very expensive.
(The correspondent then contrasted that with an experience in China. Some other item (shaving kit?) had a zipper with a bad tooth. He found some guy who was sitting outside on a grungy blanket who said he could fix it. The guy rummaged around in his stuff, found a tool and replacement tooth, and fixed the zipper. The correspondent asked how much. The guy waved him off--no charge.)
thank you for this - I love lists of obscure but great movies! There's a lot of dreck to sort through now. Did you ever see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie? My kid found it and we watched it last night and I think it fits your criteria.
Funny: I’ve heard of this, but I don’t remember us ever discussing it. It’s definitely something we might have shown.
Edit: one thing I forgot to mention is, we got most of our movies from Swank Motion Pictures. This one doesn't appear to be available from Swank.
Re: 'They really just want him to give up and go away, but instead he actually goes to the “somewhere else.” Over and over. No one will actually say “no,”'
Some years ago, the China and Japan correspondents for some media company switched positions and wrote about the experience. Your comment about "no one will actually say 'no'" reminds me of one of the stories from the former Japan correspondent, which he used to illustrate the throw-away aspect of Japanese culture. He had taken an item (a sweater?) with a broken zipper into a shop to get the zipper fixed or replaced. The guy behind the counter apparently didn't want to take the job, but he wouldn't say it directly. Instead, he kept talking about how it would be very difficult, very expensive.
(The correspondent then contrasted that with an experience in China. Some other item (shaving kit?) had a zipper with a bad tooth. He found some guy who was sitting outside on a grungy blanket who said he could fix it. The guy rummaged around in his stuff, found a tool and replacement tooth, and fixed the zipper. The correspondent asked how much. The guy waved him off--no charge.)