Wonderful character development!

Best movie ever!

Absolutely Brilliant!

A Masterpiece!

This movie was preposterous, and overwrought. When the final pieces started falling together I literally screamed out at the screen. People have compared this to Tarantino? Not even close. It is a poor man's version of Crash, at best, and is really pathetic from beginning to end. B movie, with an A list cast. I too watched it for free, and I got ripped off. I mainly got it for Julie Delpy, and she is entirely wasted. I hope she and the others got a good payday out of this, because it definitely did nothing else for them, or me.Juke!

This is honestly one of the best comedies I saw this year. I kept complaining about Hollywood not having made a good comedy for years and there it is, I ran into this beauty, by accident. I need to admit that I was owned by the cover, Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, this must be good - I had my doubts about seeing a movie with Brandon Fraser (really lousy movies in the past) or Sarah Michelle Gellar (I don't consider her talented at all), I said come one, these two can not make Whitaker look bad, he is such an amazing actor.Oh well, it's not them that made Whitaker look bad, it's the whole movie. The acting was just as bad, but the story, oh the story, was so dull, incredibly unreal and maybe focused on 14 year old. It didn't make any sense. I kept asking myself all the time why is that guy doing that, is there any sense in this whole thing? Not to mention the fact that - the movie is made of 4 different stories - there is completely no connection whatsoever between the story. I could as well have taken 3 random people from the street and they would have been more related to each other than the people in this movie. The time sequence is completely screwed up, things happen in a completely unrelated order. I consider it painful to go into the story, but it really didn't make any sense, I found myself laughing out loud after the first 10 minutes and I continued to do so. I must admit that it was entertaining at least. Completely unbelievable, it's not only that I didn't care about the characters at all, as they were so badly built, but, after Whitaker got shot, I just wanted all to die: Garcia is a frustrated gangster, deciding to go straight, so he only beats up and kills his own people; Bacon is on speed the whole movie, going about like a maniac; Fraser wants to look depressed and mysterious, a character with a touch of darkness who, apparently, falls in love and turns good but he succeeds to look like he just had a bad meal in all the important scenes and Gellar, oh she tries to act! She tries to look frightened, to look hurt or whatever human emotions, oh well she succeeds to look like she is faking acting, a spoiled kid who got a role in a movie.Well, you can watch it if you want to have a laugh. For any other consideration, do not let the distribution full you, Whitaker made a good role, but he was really lonely in this one.

Co-writer/director Jieho Lee had four good enough stories to make four different films. He tried to be "daring" and shoved them all into the one movie. It didn't work; he dished out an hour-and-a-half of undeveloped plots and characters instead.I would have preferred it if Jieho Lee had just picked one of his main characters and made a whole film about them. The fact that he didn't is a pity because the standalone story lines are intriguing enough without being muddled in with such a gratuitous and improbable intertwining plot involving a bag of stolen money.I know 'The Air I Breathe' is highly concerned with the Chinese proverb about happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love. It should have been more concerned with the film making proverb about a beginning, middle and end.

Another story in which the characters in the four vignettes are intertwined in different ways, appear to be a favorite of film makers lately. The film follows the concept of "Short Cuts", "Babel", "Amores perros" and others of this genre in a film that keeps the viewer's attention from the beginning. It also marks a film debut of a director whose roots are a mixture of Asian philosophy with an American point of view.There are four sections, or stories. The first one, Happiness, involves an accountant who is a milquetoast. He works for an investment firm where his fellow workers don't show him any kind of respect. When he hears a few of them talking about a sure way to making some money by betting on a horse running in a race that seems to be rigged, he decides to go to the joint and places his bet. Little does he know the man in charge of the illicit business, Fingers, really wants to know how he learned about his underground operation and decides to make good to his nickname by showing the amateur man never to cross him again. He then decides to take matters into his own hand by robbing a bank in order to replace the money he lost.The second story Fingers right hand man, Pleasure, a soft spoken thug, is entrusted with his boss' visiting nephew, Tony, who has his eye into breaking in crime. Alas, Tony, is more interested in bedding women than anything else. The best thing though is the discovery of a new singer, that catches the henchman's attention. They will be tragically connected to one another in the next episode, titled Sorrow. The singer is a protégé of Fingers. She wants to break away from this creepy man desperately. She finds a refuge in Pleasure's home, only to be discovered by Fingers and his men. She is made a prisoner because she has shown disloyalty to her benefactor.The last vignette is about Love, a doctor that attended Pleasure when he was brought to the emergency room. We get to know he had loved Gina, a beautiful young woman who met and married his best friend. She is a researcher working with snakes. When she is bit by one, she goes into a sort of coma, as the antidote doesn't seem to work. Because of a rare blood type, it is almost impossible to save her unless a donor is found. The doctor happens to see an interview with Sorrow, who also has the same type, so he enlists her to help Gina. When all is said and done, we watch as Sorrow goes through an airport because a new freedom she found with the help of Happiness unexpected gift.The film, directed by Jieho Lee and with a screenplay by Bob DeRosa keeps the viewer involved at all times. The best thing Mr. Lee did was getting an ensemble kind of acting from his large cast. Best of all, in our humble opinion, was Andy Garcia, who gives one of his strongest performances in years as the criminal Fingers. Forest Whitaker also has some good moments playing against type. Brandon Fraser, Kevin Bacon, Emile Hirsh, and Julie Delpy, contribute to our enjoyment.One can only wish Mr. Lee a long career in films.