Paradies in Flammen (1997)

Paradies in Flammen: Directed by Craig Lahiff. With Russell Crowe, Yûki Kudô, Kenji Isomura, Ray Barrett. After a botched bank job, a gang takes hostage a Japanese girl on the run from an arranged marriage, and escapes. Their wheel man saves the girl from them and the two go on the run with cops, the gang and her psycho husband on their tail.

“I picked this up at the local video store recently as I am always looking for something that might not have been first run but still might turn out to be interesting. I wasnu0026#39;t disappointed with this noirish little flick that featured a rather sweet love story between Russell Crowe (Colin) and Youki Koudoh (Midori)as the lovers on the lam from just about everyone – the cops, the Afghan gangsters and Youkiu0026#39;s husband Kenji Isomorua (Yokio).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film is essentially a road movie as the two ill-fated lovers come together after Midori leaves her husband and Colin becomes a driver for the Afghan gangsters in a robbery that goes awry resulting in Midori been taken as a hostage. What follows is chase across the Australian Outback as the naive Midori falls for the quiet Colin and they try to elude their chasers to reach their paradise on the beach.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThere is some lapses of logic as the chasers find the ill-fated lovers as well as some jarring violence but this tidy little Australian film is a worthy addition to the noir genre. Worth seeing.”