Blog Archives

Sparrow (2008)

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Posted on July 7, 2008 by Justin

Johnnie To’s films have been favourites here at Heroic Cinema for years: Alison showed me The Mission years ago and got me hooked on modern Hong Kong film. Hong Kong and its surroundings transform through To’s pictures into somewhere preternaturally cool: all rain-slicked night metropolis, populated by street-crawling thugs (often played by Lam Suet) and the occasional ambiguously dangerous Anthony Wong. And he makes it look easy, too — most of Milkyway Studios’ pictures are beautifully shot, from … (read more)

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Exiled (2006)

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Posted on September 25, 2007 by James

After following reckless and ruthless triad bosses across Hong Kong and China in Election and its sequel, Johnnie To returns to the perspective of the heroic underling as well as to the celebrated story dimension of 1999’s The Mission, one of the major highlights of his prolific career.

Exiled is neither a direct sequel or prequel to The Mission, but rather an interplay of similarities and divergences from the earlier film’s plot, themes, characters and stylistic approach. … (read more)

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Eye In The Sky (2007)

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Posted on July 1, 2007 by Justin

I sat down to watch Eye in the Sky at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival and overheard a conversation behind me from two older ladies, who’d evidently set up base camp in the State Theatre and were watching their way through the entire Festival program. “Where’s this one from?”, one asked. “Hong Kong.” “Oh, so there’ll be lots of flying around, then?”

Sigh. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has a lot to answer for. There’s no flying around at all… (read more)

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Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Ching Yee

Hai-yah!!! If I was 10 and watched this film I would have high-kicked my way out of the cinema. But as a, *ahem*, mature and none-too-lithe adult… I just made do with imagining I was high-kicking.

Although I didn’t kick and punch my way out of the cinema, I can understand how Stephen Chow felt when he saw his first Bruce Lee film. If this was the feeling he was trying to recreate for his audience, his effort is not … (read more)

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The Mission (1999)

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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)

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Men Suddenly In Black (2003)

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Posted on February 25, 2006 by Ben Jennings

Men Suddenly in Black is a one-joke yet consistently funny spoof of Hong Kong gangster movies. I should probably make it clear from the outset that I have virtually no standards when it comes to the send-up comedy genre, as I find the jokes that don’t work frequently funnier than the ones that do. So if you load your movie with transparently stupid references to other movies and genre conventions, you’re unlikely to get an entirely bad review out of … (read more)

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Running Out of Time 2 (2001)

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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)

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PTU (2003)

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Posted on August 24, 2003 by Alison

Johnnie To Kei Fung has been working on PTU for around two years, in between other projects, and so the film has gained a degree of notoriety purely for that reason. As a result, To was a trifle anxious as to how this pet project would be received: speaking briefly before the opening night screening, he expressed a hope that the audience would forget The Mission, and give PTU its own chance.

Well, it’s not The Mission. It … (read more)

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