Blog Archives

Love on a Diet (2001)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 11, 2007 by Ching Yee

How will your loved one[s] react if you suddenly put on 200 pounds? Will they love you any less? Does being beautiful = thin? What sort of message is this film trying to send? These questions whizzed through my head as I watched Love on A Diet, Johnnie To’s latest offering, with HK’s über popstars, Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau [suffering for their art by packing on heavy sumo suits]. These human insecurities form the basis for the premise of … (read more)

Comments Off on Love on a Diet (2001)

Fulltime Killer (2001)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 11, 2007 by Ching Yee

It seems being a housekeeper in HK comes with a few hazards. If you’re like Chin (Kelly Lin) you can end up being love target between not one but two of Asia’s top professional killers, O (Takashi Sorimachi) and Tok (Andy Lau). [Depending on how you look at it, it may not be a bad thing!] O is Asia’s top assassin and Tok would like to see himself wear that title instead. Chin, O’s housekeeper/cleaner becomes an unwitting (this point … (read more)

Comments Off on Fulltime Killer (2001)

Election (2005)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 3, 2007 by Ben Jennings

This is one of those movies that just gets better and better the more you think about it. Johnnie To has actively sought to bring a realistic representation of the triad to the screen, to subvert the glamourised manner with which the Hong Kong cinema (To included) has portrayed its local gang culture, and lay bare its true nature. These kind of revisionist gangster movies have always been the best, and Election reminded me of The Godfather Part 2 and … (read more)

Comments Off on Election (2005)

Breaking News (2004)

(from , dir: )
Posted on March 3, 2007 by Jonathan

Johnnie To confuses me. I have never been able to satisfactorily account for why I enjoy his films so much, and I don’t like that. It has always seemed to me that he strikes a very uneasy balance between visual style and dramatic substance; those devices (plot and character-related) To employs to lend weight to the emotional side of his films are usually very conventional, but somehow he always manages to obscure this until I think about it afterwards, which … (read more)

Comments Off on Breaking News (2004)

The Mission (1999)

(from , dir: )
Posted on October 22, 2006 by Alison

There’s really nothing one can say that will adequately describe this film. I keep trying, but my tongue tangles with superfluous superlatives: excellent, great, superb, marvellous, impossibly good. I feel like I’ve regressed to my teen years, abandoning the maturity which I’m supposed to have gained by now.

Okay, then, I’ll give it a try. First up, this is one of director To’s best films. It exemplifies all of To’s strong points: visually stunning scenes, minimal dialogue, strongly defined characters, … (read more)

Comments Off on The Mission (1999)

Throw Down (2004)

(from , dir: )
Posted on November 25, 2005 by Mark Morrison

Johnnie To is ever the genre-shifting shapechanger. You can’t get a hold on him; just when you think you’ve got a firm grasp on his style, he jinks around, unhooks your hold and throws you back to the mat. I mean that in a good way.

Throw Down sees To partially back in the quirky territory of previous Milkway Image productions like The Odd One Dies and Too Many Ways To Be Number One, but in a more good-hearted … (read more)

Comments Off on Throw Down (2004)

Running Out of Time 2 (2001)

(from , dir: /)
Posted on November 25, 2005 by Ching Yee

If you liked Running Out of Time as much as I did then you’d have been hanging out to see this sequel by Johnnie To.

First off, the good news — Lau Ching Wan returns as the likeable, determined smarty-pants cop Inspector Ho Seung Sang. Other regulars from the first film such as Lam Suet, Ruby Wong and Hui Sui-Hong also returns (Lam Suet in a break from continuity tradition returns as a different character just to mess with our … (read more)

Comments Off on Running Out of Time 2 (2001)

My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002)

(from , dir: /)
Posted on November 25, 2005 by Ching Yee

If there are comfort foods for the seasons then Milkyway films must be one of my comfort films.

As I was thinking about My Left Eye Sees Ghosts, Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai’s latest hit, one film in particular springs to my mind — Needing You. In this case, because Sammi Cheng is again the lead actress but My Left Eye has another secret weapon, the pairing of Sammi with another Milkyway veteran — the dark and … (read more)

Comments Off on My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002)