Ok, someone remind me never to play Chinese Roulette's eponymous party game, with Fassbinder especially, but with anyone I care to remain friends with. Youch! Peppered with interesting shots, this difficult to categorize satire-drama-thriller is all about people hurting one another. The set-up is delicious, as a couple both inadvertently bring their lovers to their country manor - and it's mostly awkward for the lovers. Then their monstrously cruel (but justified?) daughter shows up to expose their dilettante shame. The strange modern decor of the old country house evokes of a museum full of display cases, as we settle down to examine and dissect these complex relationships. When the daughter claims she's going to the zoo before turning up there, that's a crucial line. Can our parents' authority survive such examination? And can love survive the Chinese roulette's interrogations? Fassbinder's cold eye on the situation may actually be the cruelest of all.

More than drama or thriller it is a satirical film about matrimony with an inversion of the whodunit theme of criminal films.