Bodhisattva Noir: Agency, Theodicy, and Genre in "Running on Karma"

In _Running on Karma_, the Hong Kong commercial auteur Johnnie To and his partner Wai Ka-fai offer a meditation on the themes of agency and theodicy within a karmic worldview that sheds fresh light precisely through its improbable pastiche of genres and themes drawn from both Chinese and Western cinematic and literary traditions. By framing the tropes of superhero movies and film noir within a karmic universe, To and Wai subvert those genres’ expectations and assumptions to create a Buddhist morality tale for a global, twenty-first century Asia in which force is futile and nihilism is overcome with compassion.