How Long Is “Written By”?

Two competing works of fiction begin to take on lives of their own in this dark comic fantasy from director Wai Ka-fai. A lawyer (Lau Ching-wan) is driving with his wife (Kelly Lin), daughter (Mia Yam) and son (Chung Ying-kit) when the car is involved in a serious accident that leaves the father dead and the daughter blind. Mother is wracked with grief, and the young daughter tries to lift her spirits by writing a book in which an auto wreck claims the lives of the rest of the family but father miraculously survives. However, within the daughter's book, the fictional father senses that this alternate scenario isn't making anyone feel better, so be begins writing a book of his own, in which his life is taken by an accident as his wife and kids live on. Soon the father and daughter are writing competing versions of life after the auto accident, and their common characters begin bumping into one another as they exist within two fictional planes of existence at once. Joi Sun Ho (aka Written By) was the special opening night attraction at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival.