By Curt Schleier

THE AIR I BREATHE received scathing reviews following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.  It seemed almost as though the critical establishment had a grudge against Jieho Lee, the young Korean-American director and screenwriter making his directorial debut.  So I wasn’t expecting much and, frankly, was even tempted to skip the screening I’d been invited to.

Luckily I didn’t, because the film is an unexpected surprise. THE AIR I BREATHE is not only an interesting and at times exciting, it features sharply etched characters and proves intellectually satisfying as well.  It is also a daring enterprise for the first-time filmmaker – one he comes close to succeeding at.

The film’s conceit (and ultimately its downfall) is that it was supposedly inspired by a Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four key elements: happiness, sorrow, pleasure and love.  To start with, it seems there are far more basic human emotions than four; does greed ring a bell? What about anger and lust?

That aside, there are four inter-related vignettes, each featuring a cast member who is supposed to embody one of the emotions; the problem is that they don’t.  Brendan Fraser’s Pleasure enjoys little during the film.  Trista’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) primary emotion is terror, not the sorrow she is supposed to symbolize.  And Forest Whitaker enjoys little happiness as a hapless and timid banker who bets everything he has on what is supposed to be a sure thing – and loses it all. 


Even Kevin Bacon’s Love is unrequited.  He plays is a surgeon in love with his best friend’s wife.  It seems Lee went a long way to make his story fit with the fable, when that was entirely unnecessary.  The stories are actually fascinating on their own -- more so when they all come together in an exciting climax – and probably would have been even better if Lee hadn’t felt the need to mold them to fit the saying..

The unifying thread is Fingers (Andy Garcia), a hoodlum who earned his nickname because of his tendency to remove digits from those who don’t pay their debts in a timely manner.  Garcia is brilliant, and his leering presence elevates the film.  He’s so good an actor, he makes it look easy and I think that’s the reason he rarely gets the credit he deserves. 

Pleasure is Fingers’ enforcer.  He also has psychic power and can see into the future.  But he has a troubled soul because she was unable to use his powers to save a childhood friend.

Happiness is a milquetoast who hears colleagues talk about a fixed horse race.  He decides now is his time and places a large bet at Garcia’s emporium.


Trista also has a troubled past; she saw her father killed in an automobile accident.  Her manager depleted her financial accounts and gave her contract to Fingers in order to keep his own.  She is now his property.

Love needs to get a transfusion for the love of his life; the only person who has the rare blood type is Trista.

Lee does a really good job of weaving these disparate threads together.  It’s hard to believe that this is his first film.  The plot becomes a tad convoluted not only to fit within the framework if the proverb, but also to make the denouement work.  But all in all, it’s a very satisfying movie.  Lee has the potential to be big, and you can say you were there at the beginning.