All Tomorrow's Parties

Words fail... and not in a good way. All Tomorrow's Parties has been described as sometimes "baffling". Frankly, that's being generous.

There is an air of worthiness hanging over this film, like a fug. Prisoners try to get refugee status from a prison camp and wander a desolate Asian landscape in search of a new life and, er, that's more or less all there is.

The time is indeterminate, the place China. The director Yu Lik Wai has apparently been arrested for his work on the film - but this is no reason to hail it as great. It lacks focus and plotline and, with no linear drive to keep up the momentum, slips into the mire early on and stays there.

While the actors try their best, there is really nothing here for them. How can you power an engine with no fuel?