Open Source Intelligence and Counterinsurgency for the Jobbing Hater is a thought-provoking comedy by Gawa Leung who plays Lili, a Chinese actress who uses the titular OSINT to stalk Eve, an actress of the same casting type, in order to feel better about herself.
This atypical behaviour is not an end in itself but just one symptom of Lili's inability to control her anger and self-hatred, emotions so intense that they inevitably damage the relationship between her and affable boyfriend, Kurpreet (Amaany Ali), and her sister (Lorraine Yu, who also plays Eve).
All too aware of her self-sabotage, we witness Lili's attempts to get help from services ill-equipped or not interested in tackling the complexity of the trauma that both underlies and fuels the cycle of rage that she cannot de-escalate or break free from.
The narrative is powerful and uses a number of techniques to represent Lili's tragically sad predicament, but in places, what is going on or why, and which supplementary character is being portrayed, is very obscure; is this the use of absurdism or just a transient muddle that needs some untangling?
More successful is the exploration of the origins of Lili's distress; these are depicted in scenes using glove puppets, allowing Lili to remember past experiences in the third person.
In aggregate, the writing is engaging, very funny at times and yet never far from the rawness of Lili's pain at the intersection of anger and unhappiness.