The Rule of the Game concerns several individuals faithful to their desires. Killer, who has a restaurant-worker wife and a son, would like to score big one day and live a different life. Two bums, who occasionally work part-time burying the dead, possess a desire for money and sex although they reside in the lowest part of the Taiwanese society. A young millionaire’s wife, involved in an extramarital affair, plans to kill her husband and inherit his estate. As the characters get involved with each other, the audience realizes that such is the confusion of modern Taiwanese society. Although tales of strangers who become involved in anti-social strife are nothing new, The Rule of the Game is something more than the story line itself. The realization of the characters is that there are no winners in this game. Sometimes jovially, and other times with tinges of misery, the director’s gaze leans neither towards optimism nor pessimism. (Kang So-won)