Heist movies and shows have shown their appeal worldwide, from classics like Ocean’s Eleven to recent streaming sensations like Money Heist. Taiwan hasn’t seen too many domestically produced heist movies, which isn’t too surprising given the small size of its film market and relative lack of violent bank robberies in recent memory. This makes Breaking and Re-entering worth noting. The 2024 Taiwanese film layers comedy and romance atop the foundations of a heist movie, creating an end result that, despite narrative imperfections, should reliably entertain at least viewers with some knowledge of Mandarin Chinese.
Breaking and Re-entering begins in the midst of a bank heist, led by a methodical thief named Chang Bo-chun (played by Chen Bo-lin). Chang and his crew—which also includes a computer whiz, a disguise master, and a hand-to-hand combat expert—are robbing a bank owned by the flamboyant Chen Hai-jui (played by Wu Kang-ren). After successfully extracting NT$1 billion, Chang’s crew learns that Chen secretly hired them to execute the bank heist as a method to embezzle money. What’s even worse is that Chen plans to set up Chang’s estranged ex-girlfriend Shen Shu-wen (played by Cecilia Choi)—who happens to work at Chen’s bank—as a culprit for the embezzlement, and kill her. After Chang saves Shen from assassins in the nick of time, he reluctantly allows her to join his crew. Together, Chang, Shen, and the rest of Chang’s heist crew plan to return the stolen money to Chen’s bank, and expose Chen’s corruption.
In this sense, as the film’s title suggests, Breaking and Re-entering is technically a reverse heist movie as opposed to a traditional “steal something and get away with it” story. This makes the movie less predictable, but not to a risky extent—breaking into a bank to return money still requires the same general skillset as breaking into a bank to steal money. Furthermore, Breaking and Re-entering leans heavily into comedy, imbuing all its characters with some distinct characteristics that then help spark moments of potential laughter, both within Chang’s crew and outside. The most notable example of this is how Chen Hai-jui speaks with a distinct and exaggerated ABC (American Born Chinese) accent, which sounds highly amusing to viewers who understand Mandarin, and leans into Taiwanese stereotypes around ABCs being spoiled and naive. A fair number of other linguistic and culturally specific jokes—for example recurring exchanges of puns—also give Breaking and Re-entering spice; the film’s English subtitles do a pretty decent job at translating both the meaning and comedic intent of most of these exchanges though.
Alongside comedy, the romance between Chang Bo-chun and Shen Shu-wen represents another source of momentum—albeit flawed—for Breaking and Re-entering. Here, though, the character dynamic feels rather artificial. While the movie makes pains to show Shen Shu-wen as an assertive, empowered woman (ex. literally kicking a sexual harasser in the nuts), that contrasts with how she easily falls for Chang Bo-chun. Rose-tinted cutesy flashbacks indicate that the two somehow became a couple more than five years ago and, despite the fact Chang Bo-chun abandoned her for the five years before Breaking and Re-entering‘s events, she quickly falls back in love with Chang and is suddenly willing to partake in criminal activities to support him.
For better or worse, this mix of buddy comedy and cheesy romance give Breaking and Re-entering an unsurprising Taiwanese popular movie vibe that feels distinct from the darker, more sardonic tone of Western heist stories like Money Heist or Ocean’s Eleven. Given that, those who want a less Hollywood-ified take on the heist genre might consider Breaking and Re-entering. The movie doesn’t pretend to be philosophical or highfalutin, and is a low-commitment way to watch people steal (or more accurately, un-steal), a large chunk of money.
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Breaking and Re-entering (Chinese: 還錢)—Taiwan. Dialog in Mandarin Chinese. Directed by Leo Wang. First released February 8, 2024. Running time 1hr 39min. Starring Chen Bo-lin , Cecilia Choi , Frederick Lee , JC Lin , Kent Tsai , Wu Kang-Ren.
This article is part of Cinema Escapist’s coverage of the 2024 Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). For readers in New York, this film is also screening on Monday July 22, 2024 as part of the 2024 New York Asian Film Festival, which runs from July 12-28, 2024.
This article is also published in No Man Is An Island, an online publication focused on the connections between everyday life and politics. No Man Is An Island is brought to you by the team behind New Bloom Magazine.