Exploding a seemingly simple premise – a nameless “cowboy” courier (Spencer Nakasako) arrives in pre-Handover Hong Kong to deliver a mysterious briefcase to a mercurial Mob boss whilst becoming entangled with his femme fatale mistress (Cora Miao) – independent filmmaking legend Wayne Wang’s Life is Cheap.But Toilet Paper is Expensive barrels through inspired genre deconstruction, guerrilla docu-fiction and fierce political jeremiad, all with a keen sense of humour and one of the richest visual palettes of the 1990s.
