Johnnie To’s “Life Without Principle” Added to Venice Film Festival Slate

The 22nd film announced in the competition section Venezia 68 at this year’s Venice International Film Festival is Johnnie To’s latest, “Life Without Principle,” the event revealed Tuesday. The festival will take place August 31 – September 10.

“Life Without Principle” tells the story of three characters: an ordinary bank teller turned financial analyst is forced to sell high risk securities to her customers in order to meet her sales target; a small-time thug delves into the futures index hoping to earn easy money to post bail for a buddy in trouble with the law; a straight-arrow Police inspector, who has always enjoyed his middle income lifestyle, is suddenly desperate for money when his wife puts a down payment on a luxury flat she can’t afford and his dying father wants him to look after a young half-sister he never knew he had. Three little people who are in dire need of money for the predicaments in their respective lives have nothing in common until a bag of stolen money worth $5m pops up and lands them in an intricate situation that forces them into making soul searching decisions about right and wrong and everything in between on the morality scale. [Synopsis courtesy of the festival]

Director and producer Johnnie To said about the film: ““This is a turbulent world. In order to survive, people have no choice but play the game. No matter how hard you try to follow the rules, sooner or later, a part of you will be lost.”