aliumfungus art

At that point in the movie he's tried to conform to his mother's wishes and failed. He can't be Billy 2.0 and he doesn't want to be.

He's seen that Chang kills devils/the unrepentant and so he thinks that he can exit the situation with his reputation intact and possibly gain his mother's grudging respect if he dies by cop. So he challenges Chang to a fight.

But Chang will not be used that way. Chang may be merciless and inevitable, but he is also fair. From the questioning of Julian earlier he knows that Julian wasn't involved in either the rape or the gunning deaths of the cops at the restaurant. Furthermore, Julian isn't unrepentant. Multiple scenes show Julian looking at his hands in horror and trying to wash the blood off them. Chang knows. He knows Julian is different.

So he sees that Julian is repentant, that Julian wants to change and not be the person his mother forced him to be, and he sees that Julian has refused to participate in the bloodshed and depravity... So when Julian attempts to force Chang to kill him, he instead just beats Julian unconscious. Chang

Chang knocks Julian down for a final time and then see Crystal, and then this look of understanding dawns on his face— it’s subtle but there— which makes Julian’s mother run. Of fucking course she’s leaves Julian on the floor, battered and bruised, running away for her own life cuz that’s all she’s ever given a shit about.

So Chang leaves. He’s got a target he’ll go after, and Crystal knows that. It’s why she sends Julian after him to stop Chang from killing her. She even pulls out the “I can be your mother again” to sweeten the deal, make Julian push through his agony and do as she wishes.

I fucking hate that woman beyond comprehension. Chang’s mercy is the reason why his daughter doesn’t die later in the movie— Julian kills the man who was about to shoot her. In the script he says “how can a mother say that?” when he learns that Crystal wanted Chang’s child executed as well. That’s what drives him to go and seek his own vengeance against her in the script, and in the movie— but it’s obviously quieter about it. The way he looks down at the blade decisively before leaving the girl he just saved from his mother’s wrath, walking through the hotel hoping to do something to his life long abuser… he’s not exactly confident but he needs to something. But she’s already dead, so there’s nothing he can do anymore other than let go.

Anyways, that fight was a suicide attempt, I’m glad to see other people saying that because I wasn’t sure if I was looking too far into it when I watched the movie. It feels more obvious in the script because you see his thought process. He gets angry (literally saying he was enraged) when Chang doesn’t deliver a final blow when he’s given the chance to multiple times. Julian actually speaks up during the fight, encouraging Chang to hit first, but Chang doesn’t, makes Julian lose his patience and move first. That sequence in the script is one of my favorite parts, but I understand why it wasn’t like that in the movie. It worked much better written.

His hands being brought up time and again in the movie always felt so heavy, and shocker I’m bringing up the script again, he does the same in the script. However, after the dinner scene— ew, by the way— Julian holds his hand over a fire and doesn’t fucking flinch whatsoever because he “wanted to see when it would hurt”. It’s clearly him self-harming after interacting with his mother. Which, by the way, he fucking cries right after she leaves the room in the script, hiding his face behind a napkin to do so. That to me tells me this has happened before, and to go home and just hold your hand over a flame to see if it hurts? That feels too in line with how emotionally spent he is after being berated incessantly by his mother and he needed some form of release to feel again.