Picture this: you’ve just pulled off an epic bank heist, and now you and your crew are in possession of millions of dollars. Suddenly, you realize that you’ve played into the hands of a corrupt villain and your perfect crime will wind up costing the lives of others. Do you continue forward with your heist and leave the rest to fate, or do you turn around and try to right your wrongs?
Enter Breaking and Re-Entering, a uniquely modern heist film in which a team of thieves is faced with this very question. The team is made up of genius hacker Kao, master of disguise Bin, loyal muscleman Wen-hao, and cunning mastermind Po-chun. For the squad, robbing Wanxi Bank was the simple part of their task. Hilariously digging a tunnel straight into a supply closet and executing flawless acrobatics to get past laser beams, the four friends easily snatch billions in cash from within the bank’s vault. The problem arises, however, when Po-chun heads upstairs to return the keycards for the vault and realizes he knows one of the employees they just unwittingly framed. Upon this realization, the team soon stumbles upon another epiphany – they were being used by the bank’s President, Chen Hai-jui.
With a devious plan set up to frame the team of thieves along with the bank branch’s Junior Manager, Shen Shu-wen, Chen Hai-jui’s plan was to steal the money for himself. Knowing this, Kao, Bin, Wen-hao, and Po-chun must team up with Shu-wen to orchestrate a plan to capture the bank’s President, protect themselves, and hopefully still earn some of the money along the way. The film is amusing, filled with funny moments and antics such as using scallion pancakes as bombs and Taiwan’s infamous flying cockroaches as distraction. However, there are still heartwarming moments that emphasize the importance of friendship. The squad is willing to do anything to protect one another, and although things may not always work out for them, they continue to stay by each others’ sides.
Following the film’s screening at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), Asia Blooming spoke with Director Leo Wang and Actor Kent Tsai about the film, its inspirations, and more.
To create a movie, it starts with coming up with a concept and storyline, writing the script, and casting the roles. “We created this project back when COVID-19 started. It was a time period when the total world economy was bad,” Director Wang began. “But, I got married and had kids, so I felt a lot of joy during that time. [Through making this film], I just wanted to bring some joy and entertainment to the audiences. I’m not trying to convey any big messages or anything, but I wanted to [recreate that feeling like] when I was a kid, watching movies like Ocean’s Eleven.” Breaking and Re-entering isn’t your average heist film, as the team of thieves must reverse their heist and put the money back where it was. On the film concept, Wang revealed it was a bit of a drunken idea: “I was working on a heist movie because I thought Taiwan doesn’t really have one. I wanted it to be like a big action-comedy blockbuster, so I started working on a script,” he started. “One of my writer friends and I were randomly talking and drinking one night, and I guess we were really drunk, but we were talking about heist films and how they’re always about stealing diamonds and money. But, we got to thinking about wanting to return back what was stolen and how it might be a little harder because you need to bring everything back. We thought it would be a cool concept.”
Kent Tsai, who plays the highly intelligent and talkative hacker Kao, also shared the same enthusiasm as the director. “I really wanted the audience to enjoy the performances in the film and have fun watching it,” he began. “I was also really lucky to work with actors who are so seasoned [on this project]. It didn’t take long for us to get used to each other’s rhythms and the way we work. I didn’t have to worry about anything else, and all I had to do was think about my lines and how to inject my soul into my character. We all worked so well with each other and just made magic happen.”
Thinking back to how he joined the cast, Tsai shared that the audition process was quite casual. “The process was just like a long chat with the director. During this process, the director felt that my pace when I’m speaking Mandarin is pretty similar to what he envisioned for Kao,” he started. “When acting in a film, there are a lot of details about the characters that you have to internalize to express with your performance. [In the end], the biggest challenge for me was actually trying to digest and process this sense of awkwardness so that I can act out Kao’s lame jokes and bad puns without embarrassment. I had to get comfortable with the thought that people may not laugh at the jokes or find them funny, so that was probably the most difficult for me as an actor. I relate to Kao a lot with his yearning and longing for a sense of belonging and being like family with his friendships. His deep care for his friends reflects how I operate in my daily life too, but I really loathe the awkwardness from his bad puns and bad jokes. That’s very different from how I operate in real life, as I personally will do my best to avoid any situations that bring awkwardness to the surface,” he concluded with a laugh. To this, Wang also chimed in: “[Tsai’s ability to keep a straight face with the bad jokes] is actually a very hard thing to do. It isn’t just about his acting skills, but also his personal quality. He’s perfect for the role.” He continued, “But, I’d like to disagree [with him saying he doesn’t tell these types of jokes in his daily life]. Being on set with Kent, he definitely does a lot of bad puns and jokes, too.”
Looking back at their time on set, there were so many happy moments that both struggled to recall their favorite memories. “My favorite days were the two days we spent when the whole team of five were there discussing their plans,” Wang started. “It was the first time after rehearsals that everyone was together, and the dynamic and chemistry were so fun. We spent a lot of time just coming up with random lines to try, and they were very fun days for me. Though I’m not sure if it was fun for them, because there were a lot of camera movements and repeat takes.” For Tsai, his favorite part of filming was actually one spent in solitude. “I found filming the scene I did in the car by myself the most enjoyable,” the actor began. “In that particular scene, I had to communicate with my other crew members and we had some interactions that were humorous and comical, but everything was imaginary because I was alone in the car. I had to imagine what it was like to talk to them in real time while talking to thin air and acting to this camera without even crew members around. It was challenging, enjoyable, and memorable.”
From its inception, Breaking and Re-entering took about three and a half years to complete. “Just the writing took about two years, but the filming and post production were actually quite rushed because we were aiming to release the movie around Chinese New Year,” Wang said. “I wrote the movie myself, and we had the intention of including at least one big joke or interesting visual every 10 to 15 minutes to keep the pace going. We had less than four months for post production and editing, but thanks to the actors and production team, this movie was one of the best experiences I’ve had, and we didn’t edit out many scenes.”
On his personal process and approach to the movie, Director Wang revealed most of the film was actually improvised: “I think about 30% of the lines in the final picture are all improvised. A lot of it is not really in the script except for the technical parts, and we came up with a lot of different things on the spot and during rehearsal stages. With Kent, for example, he’s great and really provided a lot of lines. I’d be like ‘I feel like you’re missing something so just say random stuff,’ and he’d do it perfectly. I was lucky with this team, as it wasn’t just him that was like that. They all really liked working with each other too, so you can tell the joy was real and that they were having fun on set, so I hope it’s conveyed through the film.” As this is Wang’s second feature film, he also believes his experience helped a lot throughout the process. “I can say exactly what I want without feeling like I’m stepping on toes. It helped a lot, especially in the comedy aspect, as I now knew how to push our actors in different stages,” he started. “Though I’m not sure if it’s all from filming experiences, or if it’s experience that came with aging, too.”
Aside from Breaking and Re-entering, Kent Tsai also has seven years of experience in acting and would love to work with Director Wang on another project in the future. He “shared, I love tortured romance stories. I don’t know if Director Wang is into that particular genre, but I definitely hope to play a character that’s like a tortured romantic soul one day.” In response, Wang declared that it’s something he’s willing to try. “I’m actually interested, but I just never found a script I liked. I also told Kent I’m writing a mixed martial arts movie, so he told me he wants to do some action,” he shared, further showcasing the actor and director’s close bond. Not only do the two have great chemistry, but they have similar viewpoints as well. When thinking about some of the jokes and puns that were cut from the film, they both shared a laugh: “A lot of the ones we liked would be lost in translation, but a lot of them would also send us straight to hell.”
Regarding the plot of the Breaking and Re-entering, both Director Wang and Kent Tsai agree that it’d be much easier to steal something than it would be to return it, but both also agree that they’d return what was stolen if it meant protecting their loved ones. Wang shared, “If I stole money, at least I could use it to buy stuff. Returning it is actually harder, but I’m a sucker for love. Initially we were worried people might not understand why someone would risk everything they built in their life for one woman, but I thought, if you find the right girl, you would. I guess I’m a romantic, but I’d return the money like Po-chun. I guess I put a little bit of myself in the character.” Tsai also shared a similar thought process. “I’ve always wanted to break into a bank and steal money,” he started with a laugh. “But of course, I would never actually do it. But, if I were in Po-chun’s shoes, I would return the money to save my girlfriend, as expected of a romantic like myself. You can always make more money in the future, but your girlfriend is someone you need to cherish for the rest of your life.”
Breaking and Re-Entering was originally released on February 8 of this year, and it is currently listed as coming soon on Netflix.
