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Acclaimed director Johnnie To has weighed in on the censorship and funding challenges facing the Hong Kong film industry during an in-conversation event with Japanese filmmaker Yu Irie at Tokyo International Film Festival today (October 31).

The Hong Kong filmmaker, known for crime features such as Election, Exiled and Drug War, told the assembled audience that his once booming local industry is becoming “smaller and smaller in scale”.

Highlighting a lack of financial support, To pointed to the cutting of government funding for the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival, which he founded in 2005 to nurture young talent. But he also...

Frequent filmmaking partners Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai collaborated once more to adapt Jimmy Liao’s illustrated book “A Chance of Sunshine” in the high-energy romantic comedy “Turn Left, Turn Right.” Warner Bros. Pictures notably produced and distributed this Hong Kong production, marking their first Chinese-language Asian film production. Set predominantly in Taipei, Taiwan, it meticulously adapts the source material to frame-by-frame details while maintaining its poetic direction, albeit more comical here.

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Our story follows aspiring violinist John Liu and translator Eve Choi, who recently moved to Taipei. They live in two buildings right next to each other, separated by a wall. While pursuing their ambitions, they eventually cross paths and hit it off. Yet, despite this destined love at first sight for John and Eve, fate keeps them apart through one circumstance after another, despite their continuous attempts to reunite and develop their romantic feelings.

Johnnie To Kei-fung (born 22 April 1955) is a Hong Kong filmmaker. Popular in his native Hong Kong, To has also found acclaim overseas. Intensely prolific, To has made films in a variety of genres, though in the West he is best known for his action and crime movies, which have earned him critical respect and a cult following, which includes American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

His films, often made in collaboration with the same group of actors, screenwriters and cinematographers, frequently explore themes of friendship, fate and the changing face of Hong Kong society. Sometimes described as “multifaceted and chameleonic” due to his ability to switch tones and genres between movies, To is nonetheless seen as having a consistent style, which involves mixing subdued realism and social observation with highly stylised visual and acting elements. To has cited King Hu as the director who has influenced his work the most. To heads...

Dayo Wong and Michael Hui head the cast of The Last Dance, which Emperor Motion Pictures (Emp) is launching at Hong Kong Filmart, along with Wai Ka Fai’s Detective Vs Sleuths 2.

Wong plays a debt-ridden wedding planner who finds unexpected success as a funeral planner, but he has to win over a traditional Taoist priest to stay in the business. It marks Wong’s first film after two massive hits, A Guilty Conscience and Table For Six, which made him one of Hong Kong’s most bankable actors.

The Last Dance, currently in post-production, is the third film from...

The film is out of the running due to a “conflict of interest” among the selection committee.

The producer of Hong Kong film A Light Never Goes Out has spoken out following the disqualification of the feature from the 2024 Oscars race.

The drama was submitted by the Federation of Motion Film Producers of Hong Kong for the international feature film category of the 96th Academy Awards in September. But when the Academy revealed the list of eligible titles last Thursday, A Light Never Goes Out was not included and the Federation is trying to figure out why.

Despite the outcome,...

Mainland China, July 2021: Another day another online movie made its way to the massively popular video streaming platforms there to catch the roving eyes of the viewers looking for a quick fix. Produced by Henan Guanglan Culture and starring a bunch of unknown actors, at least outside of China anyway, Tencent Video's “Longmen Town Inn” or “Dragon Gate Town Inn” in Chinese, is one such production like many countless more.

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Set in a nameless desert, the simple plot concerns Wu Long Jian Xian (Chu Xiao Long), a peerless swordsman who has to fight off challengers from other cults eager to take him down in order to claim the top position in Jianghu. Ultimately this leads to a standoff at Broken Soul Cliff in which he is the sole survivor and thereupon he also decides to live in seclusion.

The ceremony was held on Sunday evening.

Mabel Cheung’s controversial documentary To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self was named best film at the 41st Hong Kong Film Awards (Hkfa), which also saw Wai Ka Fai’s Detective Vs. Sleuths walk away with best director.

Held on Sunday evening (April 16), the awards ceremony returned to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre for the first time since 2019. It was a star-studded event with a big presence of nominees and guests on the red carpet. Most notable was Michelle Yeoh who recently won the best actress Oscar.

As the first presenter of the night, Yeoh...

Mabel Cheung’s controversial documentary To My Nineteen-year-old Self scooped Best Picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday night (April 16), where the crowds also applauded an appearance by Best Actress Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh.

Malaysia-born Yeoh, who recently became the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress, started her career in the Hong Kong film industry and has been making a celebratory return trip to the city over the past week. At the Hong Kong Film Awards, she presented the award for Best New Performer, which went to 10-year-old Sahal Zaman for The Sunny Side Of The Street.

Cheung’s documentary, which follows six schoolgirls over a perod of ten years, won Best Picture despite being earlier pulled from the awards after some of the girls said they hadn’t consented to any public screenings.

The film was resubmitted by its co-director, William Kwok,...

by Renee Ng

Normally pinned for their gritty gangster tales, Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai’s efforts in romance and slapstick have often been sidelined. But as loveable titles “Fat Choi Spirit” and “Turn Left, Turn Right” have proved, the directing/producing duo are indeed dai lous (big brothers) of many genres. “Fat Choi Spirit”, following the tradition of Hong Kong gambler flicks, and like its title: spirit of endless wealth, is the hilarious gift that keeps on giving.

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Similar to the iconic “God of Gamblers” franchise, we have the pleasure of following an impossibly great player. Andy, played by Andy Lau himself, will do anything for a game of mahjong. But Andy is no addict, he’s actually got a gift: he possesses the divine favor of Guanyin. Thus, he is simply unable to draw a bad tile...

‘My Nineteen-Year-Old Self’ withdrawn over public screening consent issues.

Courtroom drama The Sparring Partner has received 16 nominations for the 41st Hong Kong Film Awards, which saw the last-minute withdrawal of Mabel Cheung’s documentary To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self.

The Sparring Partner, which marks the feature directorial debut of Ho Cheuk Tin, leads the pack with nominations in all but three categories. Based on the true story of a gruesome double murder case, its nods include best film, best director and five nominations for performers including lead actors Mak Pui Tung and Yeung Wai Lun. The film has become Hong Kong...

Jason Momoa has been acting since 1999 when he first donned those iconic red swim trunks on TV’s Baywatch: Hawaii as a beardless 19-year-old. It took a lot of roles before the Hawaiian-born Aquaman actor got his big break as Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones. While he’s often typecast as something of a brute, the actor best known for maiming folks with his sword is ready for his comedic debut in Netflix’s fantastical family-friendly film, Slumberland.

So it’s the perfect time to look back at a TV and movie career that’s benefited just as much from Momoa’s offscreen charm as it has from his considerable time in the gym. Momoa’s most admirable use of his fame just might be the way he uplifts and inspires indigenous communities across the world. Momoa gives viewers an awful lot to love about his characters, even when...

Season 1 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” concluded with plenty of epic reveals. We know the identity of Sauron, we saw the creation of Mordor, and the three elven rings were finally forged. But the season finale left some tantalizing story threads dangling in the air for Middle Earth fans to ponder until Amazon releases new episodes. These are the top three unanswered questions Season 2 must address.

See ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ mithril myth: Don’t believe Gil-Galad about its origin!

What will the Palantir show us?

Amid the forging of the elven rings of power and the major Sauron reveal, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about the massive cliffhanger that took place in Numenor. As Earin (Ema Horvath) sketches the dying king, his majesty stirs and mistakes the girl for his daughter, Queen Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). The King...

Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.

“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”

The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”

Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...

After a very long hiatus from the big screen, Wai Ka-Fai is back with Detective Vs. Sleuths, a wildly over the top revenge thriller that reminds of the bad old days of Hong Kong genre cinema while frequently tipping into delirious silliness. Co-founder of Milkyway Image with his better-known counterpart, Johnnie To, Wai is perhaps most famous as a screenwriter of some of To’s more outré features. As a director, he’s made a name for himself for genre-bending features like the sublimely twisty Mad Detective and the literary fantasy Written By, but the latter was his most recent feature directorial effort in 2009. With fifteen years of absence from that role, Wai might seem to be a bit shaky, but Detective Vs. Sleuths finds the filmmaker...

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Hong Kong crime thriller Detective vs. Sleuths surged to the top of China’s box office in its second weekend of release, earning 18.4 million. Chinese hitmaker Chen Sicheng’s much anticipated sci-fi comedy Mozart From Space, meanwhile, made a disappointing start in second place, taking 16.6 million.

Slipping just 20 percent from its opening frame, Detective vs. Sleuths has earned 58.8 million since its opening July 8. With the summer holiday now underway, ticketing app Maoyan projects the film to finish with a healthy 110 million haul.

Produced by Emperor Motion Pictures, the film tells the story of a police detective (Sean Lau) pushed into retirement because of a mental breakdown who begins his own investigation into a string of crimes perpetrated by a serial killer known as “The Sleuth.” The film is directed by Ka-Fai Wai, best known as the writer of Johnnie To’s Hong Kong crime classic,...

Hong Kong-produced crime action film “Detective Vs Sleuths” took top honors at the mainland China box office in its second weekend of release. New release title, ‘Mozart From Space” came in a disappointing second.

“Detective Vs Sleuths” earned 18.4 million (RMB123 million) between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was only a 20 drop compared with its opening weekend and advances it to a 10-day cumulative of 58.8 million.

The film involves Wai Ka-fai, a writer-director who is also a longtime Johnnie To collaborator, re-team with actor Sean Lau (aka Lau Ching-wan), the star of 2007’s “Mad Detective.” The tale sees Lau as a retired and stressed-out former cop on the trail of a serial killer, who appears to be tidying up loose ends in a series of cold cases.

“Mozart From Space” opened with 16.6 million (RMB111 million). The film is a sci-fi comedy about an alien who...

Hong Kong-made crime action film “Detective Vs Sleuths” earned a solid 23.1 million (RMB155 million) in its opening at the mainland China box office, but it was unable to dislodge sentimental local drama film “Lighting Up the Stars” from a third weekend win.

Nevertheless, having two Chinese-language films going strongly raised the nationwide box office total above 61 million. That was the highest weekend score since the Chinese New Year high in February, which occurred before the current Covid wave in China. Further cinema re-openings likely also helped.

“Lighting Up the Stars” earned 27.7 million (RMB186) between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a 38 drop compared with its second weekend. And after three weekends in cinemas, it has accumulated 177 million (RMB1.19 million).

“Detective Vs Sleuths” sees Wai Ka-fai, a writer-director who is also a longtime Johnnie To collaborator, re-team with actor Sean Lau (aka Lau Ching-wan), the star of 2007’s “Mad Detective.

Thirteen North American premieres also added, including Next Sohee for closing night.

Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival has unveiled its third and final wave of titles, including nine world premieres and a closing night slot for Cannes Critics’ Week entry Next Sohee.

The festival has also announced the presentation of its Prix Denis-Heroux, recognising an exceptional contribution to genre and independent cinema in Quebec, to producer Pierre David, known for his collaborations with David Cronenberg, Jean-Claude Lord and other directors.

The new additions complete the line-up of more than 130 features and 200 shorts for this year’s Fantasia festival, which...

We are giving away two tickets for the Johnnie To classic “Breaking News”, which will take place 14 July 2022, 8:30 pm BST, at The Prince Charles Cinema in London, as part of the director’s retrospective.

All you have to do is subscribe to our YouTube Channel and leave a comment with your name in this video. The competition will run until June 10th.

Presented jointly by UK-China Film Collab and Trinity CineAsia, this programme provides a wider context of the societal changes in Hong Kong in recent decades. It wishes to inspire a new scope for ideas and discussion. Curated by Riley Wong, Ma Film Curating student at Birkbeck University of London, who wishes to bring more Hong Kong auteurs to the UK audiences and provides them a better understanding of Hong Kong cinema

During the mid-90s, by facing the depression of Hong Kong cinema, To decided to establish his own production studio,...

Within the filmography of perhaps Hong Kong’s most prolific directors, Johnnie To, the year 2011 proved once again his ability to switch between genres and tones effortlessly. The romantic comedy “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”, co-directed by Wai Ka-Fai, was followed by “Punished”, a crime thriller in a similar vein like the ones To had directed just a few years prior, and finally, “Life Without Principle”, a crime drama which would take a closer look at the effects of economic destabilization. In an interview with the French press, To states he perceives the people working in finance, most specifically those higher up in the food chain, as even worse than the infamous Chinese triads, abusing their power and exploiting, with no one in sight to end their doings. Even though it was something of a diversion from his other works, “Life Without Principle” would win big at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival,...

12 – 17 July 2022, Louis Koo Cinema

New Waves, New Shores: Busan International Film Festival is back with three screenings and a masterclass! The moving image programme is presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre (Hkac), financially supported by the Film Development Fund, Create Hong Kong, and in festival partnership with the Busan International Film Festival (Biff). Through an integrated series of screenings, talks, workshops and a masterclass, the programme aims to introduce the cross currents in Hong Kong and Korean cinema, as well as the importance of Biff as one of the leading film festivals in Asia. The screenings comprise a Hong Kong showcase curated by Maggie Lee, and a Korean showcase co-curated by Lee and Nam Dong-chul.

Previously brought to a halt by the pandemic, the programme now brings back screenings of Too Many Ways to Be No. 1, Dumplings and Thirst, and Masterclass on Screen Adaptation: A Conversation Between Chung Seo-kyung and Fruit Chan,...

The line-up includes Korean thriller ‘Confession’ and Hong Kong comedy ‘Table For Six’.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has unveiled the first films for its 20th edition, including Yoon Jong-seok’s Korean mystery thriller Confession, Sunny Chan’s Hong Kong comedy Table For Six, Arvin Chen’s Taiwanese romantic drama Mama Boy and Kazuya Shiraishi’s Japanese serial-killer thriller Lesson In Murder, all of which are North American premieres.

This year will mark Nyaff’s full return to the big screen, following a virtual 2020 edition and a hybrid 2021 edition. More than 60 new and classic titles from Asia will...

‘The Heroic Mission’ is named and inspired by two titles of To’s films during the 90s: The Heroic Trio (1992) and The Mission (1998). The imagery of ‘hero’ created by To in most of his films represents a fated statement: ‘We all came with a mission’. Influenced by the film directors King Hu, Sam Peckinpah and Akira Kurosawa, To enjoyed his international breakthrough with a film noir signature and gangster films. To specialises in angling at different characters in daily life and portraying their inner struggles and conflicts between desire and making choices. To once said, ‘I can see two to three faces of a person.’ Three films have been selected in this programme and each tells a different story about heroism.

Presented jointly by UK-China Film Collab and Trinity CineAsia, this programme provides a wider context of the societal changes in Hong Kong in recent decades. It wishes to...

A prominent commercial filmmaker in Hong Kong since the mid-80s, the career path and status of Johnnie To is distinctive from contemporaries such as John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-wai. Solely committed to his national cinema, he made a point of never venturing to Hollywood and even formed his own production company, Milkyway Image, in 1996. Only in the mid-2000s when films like Breaking News (2005) and Election (2006) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival was Johnnie To given auteur consideration by Western critics and audiences. Even then, it was only his crime and action genre work, characterized by their elegant style and directorial control, that found critical success and was seen as commercially viable for international markets. With over 50 features under his belt, Johnnie To has a massive oeuvre not bound to any single mode and while he is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest formalist filmmakers, his fluency in visual storytelling transcends genre.

In The Overlook, A.V. Club film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky examines the misfits, underappreciated gems, and underseen classics of film history.

The worldwide reputation of Johnnie To, who has sat at the head of the table of Hong Kong genre directors since about the late 1990s, comes mostly from his perfectly formulated crime and gangster films. These are embellished pulp-existentialist stories of men with missions, ticking clocks, cornered killers. On the more out-there projects—like 2001’s Fulltime Killer, which was kind of like his take on the gratuitous post-modern, post-Tarantino, video-store-addled hit man movie—he’ll sometimes share directing credit with Wai Ka-Fai, his longtime screenwriter and producing partner. But even in those joint efforts, you can clearly make out the fingerprint of “the To touch.” His staging has the cleverness and precision of a heist, yet it still has a very rich range: deep-focus master shots, fuzzy extreme ...

Company boards Wai Ka-fai and Derek Kwok projects.

Emperor Motion Pictures (Emp) has unveiled a trio of high-profile action pictures, headed by Cold Detective, which reteams frequent Johnnie To collaborator Wai Ka-fai with star Sean Lau Ching-wan.

The suspense action drama is a loose follow-up to award-winning 2007 crime thriller Mad Detective [pictured], which starred Lau and was co-directed by Wai and To. The story revolves around the race between two rival sleuths to uncover the identity of an assassin before he strikes again.

Emp is also reteaming with As The Light Goes Out director Derek Kwok on mystery thriller Schemes In Antiques. The Beijing-set film revolves around the search for a Ming Dynasty Buddha relic.

Also new on Emp’s slate is the company’s first collaboration with Jeff Cheung Ka-kit – scriptwriter on Johnnie To’s Life Without Principle. Cheung will direct Dirty On Duty, starring idols Alex Fong and Carlos Chan. The Macau-set...

For the fifth year, IndieWire is co-hosting the Locarno Critics Academy, giving a group of talented up-and-coming critics a chance to help their role in the current climate for film criticism and journalism at the Locarno International Film Festival. With assistance from Penske Media, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, participants will engage in a series of activities and then get to work. They will spend the first half of the festival which begins today, in roundtable discussions with working critics and industry figures; beginning next week, they’ll write about films at this year’s festival, as well as topics ranging from television to digital media.

Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.

One week a month, Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by the week’s new releases or premieres. This week: Equity inspires a look back at other films set in the corporate world.

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (2011)

People mocked Mitt Romney when he described corporations as people, but Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart understands that individuals investing in a romance operate quite similarly to businesses playing the market. One weighs different partners, attempting to determine if they’ll blossom into truly lovable individuals, all before choosing a marriage as a long-term investment. The film’s first third equates the 2008 financial meltdown with the breakup of Zixin (Gao Yuanyuan). When the story flashes forward three years, her hope is to finally make sound financial and romantic decisions.

Most romantic comedies pit a bad boy against a nice guy, but Don ...

The latest Chinese film to sneak into North American theatres with little fanfare, targeting immigrant communities with single multiplex screens in a handful of major metropolitan markets, is the new film from prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To. His first crime film since 2013’s Blind Detective (yet to see a Us release) and his first film set in a hospital since his 2000 farce Help!!!, To’s latest is a bottle episode, a side-swipe at a psychological thriller about a cop, a crook and a doctor battling to see who can best exemplify humanity’s hubris in the face of chance and fate. This conflict between free will and universal randomness lies at the heart of most of the films To has made in the twenty years since he established the Milkyway Image studio, uniting both his crime thrillers and his romances, though rarely has it been stated so explicitly.Taking...

The hopes one places in films can be a strange thing: that certain something, whatever it may be, that was special once, twice, or many times about the work of an actor, a director, a genre—how that instills the yearning for that very thing to be reconstituted again anew. (And yet, of course, the precariousness of this desire; thus the baffling response, for example, that South Korean director Hong Sang-soo keeps doing the same old thing.)I love Hong Kong director Cheang Soi, whom I have written about before, an action-thriller auteur of unique vision and energy. His international presence and reputation were upgraded over the last few years with a two-film stint at Johnnie To's Milkyway Image company—Accident and Motorway—as his style of gritty pursuit was sandpapered to the sleek, honed feel of To and Wai Ka-fai's company. And then he leapt even further:...

Dear Fernando,The hopes one places in films can be a strange thing: that certain something, whatever it may be, that was special once, twice, or many times about the work of an actor, a director, a genre—how that instills the yearning for that very thing to be reconstituted again anew. (And yet, of course, the precariousness of this desire; thus the baffling response, for example, that South Korean director Hong Sang-soo keeps doing the same old thing.)I love Hong Kong director Cheang Soi, whom I have written about before, an action-thriller auteur of unique vision and energy. His international presence and reputation were upgraded over the last few years with a two-film stint at Johnnie To's Milkyway Image company—Accident and Motorway—as his style of gritty pursuit was sandpapered to the sleek, honed feel of To and Wai Ka-fai's company. And then he leapt...

Hong Kong director to speak on stage in London as part of BAFTA’s A Life In Pictures series.

BAFTA is to look back at the career of top Hong Kong director Johnnie To as part of its A Life In Pictures series.

The event, held with the Asian Film Awards Academy, will see the filmmaker discuss his craft and career at BAFTA’s headquarters in London on June 22.

Born in Hong Kong in 1955, To began his career in television, and in 1980 co-directed his first theatrical feature The Enigmatic Case. He came to wider attention in 1989 with All About Ah-Long starring Chow Yun-Fat.

In 1996, To founded, along with Wai Ka-Fai, Milkyway Image, an independent production company that became a flagship for Hong Kong cinema.

From 2000 onwards, To found international acclaim as a director and producer on the festival circuit, with films including The Mission, Ptu, Breaking News and Election. His most recent titles include Drug War and...

The results of the 21st Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards were announced earlier today, with Fruit Chan's surreal science fiction comedy thriller The Midnight After named as Best Film of 2014. Chan was also named Best Director, while Lau Ching Wan took the Best Actor award for Overheard 3, directed by Felix Chong and Alan Mak.Vicky Zhao Wei won Best Actress for her role in Peter Chan's Dearest, which also earned the Best Screenplay award for Zhang Ji, in a tie with Wai Ka Fai, Ryker Chan and Yu Xi for Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, directed with Johnnie To.Every year the Hkfcs presents a list of 10 "recommended films" from the year's crop of domestic offerings. Joining The Midnight After on the...

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From the Toronto International Film Festival, Adam Cook and Daniel Kasman continue our series of festival dialogues. Johnnie To's Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 had its world premiere in Tiff's Special Presentations section.

Adam Cook: Here we are again, talking To. It's frustrating how many times I've encountered a dismissive attitude towards Johnnie To's romantic comedies. I realize even the director himself disassociates from them, but, and especially with his most recent works, the rom-coms have been as formally intricate and as impressively crafted as his more revered crime films. As everyone was praising Drug War, it was Romancing in Thin Air that stood out for me. Before that there was Don't Go Breaking My Heart (written on here by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky), an impossibly entertaining love triangle in the big city movie, that while over the top and silly, had some of To's most impressive images...

The 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards is expected to be a hell of a show with some great films going head to head. Leading the way with nominations is The Grand Master with 14, followed by Unbeatable (Dante Lam).

There were complaints last year, that the show didn’t live up to expectations, mainly due to the fact the movie Cold Wars, won nearly every award. Best actor award see the likes of these guys going head to head, Tony Leung (The Grandmaster), Louis Koo (The White Storm) and also Anthony Wong (Ip Man: The Final Fight).

Take a look at the list and comment who you think will win. The winners will be announced on April 13.

Best Film:

- The Grandmaster

- Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

- The Way We Dance

- The White Storm

- Unbeatable

Best Director:

- Wong Kar Wai (The Grandmaster)

- Johnnie To...

Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster has been named Best Film by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, while its female star Zhang Ziyi was voted Best Actress. Johnnie To's Drug War won the Best Director and Best Screenplay awards, and Nick Cheung was named Best Actor for Dante Lam's Unbeatable.Here's the full list of winners:Best Film - The Grandmaster (dir. Wong Kar Wai)Best Director - Johnnie To - Drug WarBest Actor - Nick Cheung - UnbeatableBest Actress - Zhang Ziyi - The GrandmasterBest Screenplay - Wai Ka Fai , Yau Nai Hoi , Chen Weibin , Yu Xi - Drug WarIn addition to Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster, the Hkfcs presented a short list of 6 Hong Kong films from the 49 released last year, to which...

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As with any year, some people have begun arguing that 2013 was a bad year for film, because of the expected glut of effects-heavy blockbusters that litter the multiplexes each summer, or because there was a lack of auteur-driven storytelling for the majority of the year. Though it is indeed frustrating that studios hold their more prestigious films until the last month or two of this or any year, 2013 was an excellent year for film. You shouldn’t have to look first to Sound on Sight’s list of the 30 best films of 2013 for proof, but you should add it to the pile, no doubt. We asked our film writers to provide their personal lists of the 15 best films of the year; everyone’s number-one pick got 15 points allocated, everyone’s number-two pick got 14 points, and so on. (As you’ll see, the point values for each of the 30 films is included here.

This year New York's Migrating Forms is presenting a double bill of two Johnnie To films: Running on Karma (2003) and Sparrow (2008). Placed next to each other, they reveal interesting convergences and divergences that help define the dual authorship of To and his frequent collaborator Wai Ka-fai (co-director, and a writer and producer on Running on Karma but not Sparrow). To is both an intellectual and emotional director capable of multifarious expressions. Wai is more cerebral, his projects characterized by conceptually dense and layered narrative detail. In the contrastive yet strikingly parallel endings of Running on Karma and Sparrow, hints of the nuances behind these filmmakers' work becomes evident.

The final sequence of Running on Karma:

The final sequence of Sparrow:

Each of these films arrive at two of the most ecstatic endings in To's cinema, in which the two respective male protagonists, left lonely by the absence of the woman they loved,...

Big changes are in store for the 5th annual Migrating Forms experimental media festival, which is set to run December 11-17.

Well, that’s the first change: Moving from its traditional spot in March to December. More importantly, though, the fest is moving physical locations. Instead of it’s usual home of the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, this year’s Migrating Forms will be screening at the BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.

The festivities will begin on Dec. 11 with the U.S. premiere of four new short films by media artist Ryan Trecartin. Each film involves a unique cast of characters, including Trecartin’s actual high school classmates and a group of reality TV show hopefuls, navigating their complex social strata.

The rest of the fest will screen challenging feature-length material, such as Drew Tobia’s outrageous See You Next Tuesday; the family drama The Unity of Things by Daniel Schmidt...

Ziyi Zhang: Best Actress at the 2013 Golden Horse Awards (photo: Ziyi Zhang in ‘The Grandmaster’) (See previous post: “Golden Horse Awards: Singaporean Movie ‘Ilo Ilo’ Is Surprising Best Picture Choice.”) Although Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo took home the top award at the 50th Golden Horse Awards, Wong Kar Wai’s Berlin Film Festival opening gala film The Grandmaster was this year’s big winner: six awards, including the Best Actress trophy for Ziyi Zhang. That marked Zhang’s first victory, after three previous nominations: Best Actress for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 and for 2046 in 2004; Best Supporting Actress for Forever Enthralled in 2009. "It was a very long and suffering journey making The Grandmaster, but now I’m very happy," Zhang said in her acceptance speech. In Wong’s Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts drama she plays the daughter of fighting master, who, so as to restore her family’s honor,...

Tiff’s Midnight Madness program turned 25 this year, and for two and half decades, the hardworking programers have gathered some of the strangest, most terrifying, wild, intriguing and downright entertaining films from around the world. From dark comedies to Japanese gore-fests and indie horror gems, the Midnight Madness program hasn’t lost its edge as one the leading showcases of genre cinema. In its 25-year history, Midnight Madness has introduced adventurous late-night moviegoers to such cult faves as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. But what separates Midnight Madness from, say, Montreal’s three and half week long genre festival Fantasia, is that Tiff selects only ten films to make the cut. In other words, these programmers don’t mess around. Last week I decided that I would post reviews of my personal favourite films that screened in past years. And just like the Tiff programmers,...

Johnnie To takes his unique brand of action filmmaking to Mainland China with Drug War, his latest collaboration with writer Wai Ka Fai. A breathless game of cat and mouse between an elite anti-narcotics team and a conniving drug dealer trying to save his own skin, Drug War is a thrilling and surprisingly violent ride that offers an eye-opening look at China's drug trade and the methods Chinese law enforcement agencies use to bring it down. Starring Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, and an assortment of Milky Way regulars including Lam Suet, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Lo Hoi Pang, Michelle Ye, Philip Keung and Berg Ng, Drug War is available to buy in the U.K. from 28 October 2013. You can check out the trailer below, along with Chris Sawin's review of the movie. We're nice like that... Synopsis: After losing control of his car and crashing into a local restaurant, a...

Johnnie To takes his unique brand of action filmmaking to Mainland China with Drug War, his latest collaboration with writer Wai Ka Fai. A breathless game of cat and mouse between an elite anti-narcotics team and a conniving drug dealer trying to save his own skin, Drug War is a thrilling and surprisingly violent ride that offers an eye-opening look at China's drug trade and the methods Chinese law enforcement agencies use to bring it down. Starring Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, and an assortment of Milky Way regulars including Lam Suet, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Lo Hoi Pang, Michelle Ye, Philip Keung and Berg Ng, Drug War is available to buy in the U.K. from 28 October 2013. You can check out the trailer below, along with Chris Sawin's review of the movie. We're nice like that... Synopsis: After losing control of his car and crashing into a local restaurant, a...

Drug War

Written by Wai Ka-Fai, Yau Nau-hoi, Ryker Chan and Yu Xi

Directed by Johnnie To

2012, Hong Kong/China

The name of Hong Kong director Johnnie To resonates strongly with fans of hard edged gangster films and cop stories. For years already he has delivered time and time again with some of the most vivid, gritty and viscerally charged films which populate the genre. His more recent output has occasionally diverged from the action dramas he built his name on, mainly with 2008′s cape flick Sparrow and 2011′s Don’t Go Breaking my Heart with which he branched out into romantic comedy.

Admirers clamoring for a return to the bolder crime films have their prayers answered with To’s latest, Drug War, starring Louis Koo as Timmy Choi, a mid level drug smuggler, and Sun Honglei as police captain Zhang Lei, the man trying to use Timmy’s intel...

Title: Drug War Well Go USA/Variance Films Director: Johnnie To Screenwriter: Wai Ka-fai, Johnnie To Cast: Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Crystal Huang, Wallace Chung, Gao Yunxiang, Li Guangjie, Guo Tao, Li Jing, Lo Hoi-pang, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Michelle Ye, Lam Suet Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 7/2/13 Opens: July 26, 2013 In China the penalty for selling more than 50 mg of methamphetamine is death, which may not be the best idea. If you’re about to be caught, what would stop you from trying to kill the cops? You can’t be executed twice! That idea fuels the “Drug War,” Johnnie To’s movie said to be the first actioner to [ Read More ]

The post Drug War Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Drug War

Directed by Johnnie To

Written by Ryker Chan, Ka-Fai Wai, Nai-Hoi Yau, Xi Yu

China/Hong Kong, 2012

Drug War begins on an impromptu note: a man foaming at the mouth and barely in control of his vehicle thunderously crashes into a local restaurant after fleeing from a drug house. This is followed by a highway sting where a few low level drug traffickers are caught; one man exchanges furious obscenities with his police captor, which are immediately closed off with a response of “I didn’t betray you; I busted you.” Drug War succeeds in never backing off this initial thrust and heightened interplay. The story of cops and criminals predates most, but master director Johnnie To’s latest plays out like an innovative trailblazer and modern spectacle all at once.

Equipped with a hardened zeal and a swift set of genre kinetics, Drug War is close to...

Johnnie To reunites his dream team pairing of Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng for the first time in nearly a decade, but the results are far from perfect as this oddball comedy thriller proves an unwieldy and unsatisfying beast.When not crafting stylish crime dramas (The Mission, Exiled, Drug War), exploring fantastical thriller territory with collaborator Wai Ka Fai (Running on Karma, Mad Detective), or peering deep into Hong Kong's wounded socio-economic soul (Election 2, Life Without Principle), writer-producer-director Johnnie To has been known to dabble in romantic comedy.Over the years, through films including Needing You and Love on a Diet, To has cast superstar Andy Lau together with pop icon Sammi Cheng to hugely popular effect. However, after a crisis of confidence following the disastrous...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Cult favourite and auteur Johnnie To joins the ranks of Hong Kong directors trying their luck on the Mainland with the thriller “Drug War”, following up on his co-produced “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” and “Romancing in Thin Air”. Seeing him work again with regular partner and writer Wai Ka Fai, the Milkyway outing has To returning once more to the violent world of cops and crooks, with shifting loyalties and shootouts being the order of the day. Having played at Venice in competition and at other international festivals, the film has been eagerly awaited by fans and critics, in particular with regards to seeing how the director deals with the notoriously strict Mainland censors, who generally frown upon his usual brand of bloody moral grey areas. Sun Hong Lei (“Lethal Hostage”) stars as narcotics squad captain Zhang Lei, who gets a break in his case when drug dealer Timmy Choi (Louis Koo,...

We have the first teaser trailer for Johnnie To‘s upcoming Blind Detective movie! Originally titled Man Tam was selected to play as part of the Midnight selection at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, which is a good reason to check it out, don’t you think? Johnnie To directed the movie from a script written by Ka-Fai Wai, and the movie has a pretty cool cast on board. It includes Andy Lau as a former inspector of the Regional Crime Unit known as “The God of Cracking Cases” and Sammi Cheng as a female police inspector. They team up to solve the mysterious case, and that’s...

Blind Detective (Johnnie To, Hong Kong)

Midnight Projections

The second in our series of Cannes dialogues between Adam Cook and Daniel Kasman is on Johnnie To's Blind Detective, which screened out of competition as a Midnight Projection.

Adam Cook: Blind Detective stands out among Johnnie To’s recent work as one of his most outlandish and over-the-top films. In some ways, it feels like it meets halfway between his earlier comedies, made before he became such a rigorous craftsmen, and his present formalism. That being said, it retains a certain looseness and spontaneity that distinguishes it from just about anything he's made. How do you define this film within his oeuvre? 

Daniel Kasman: I've seen a lot of To but not in any way a majority, and have especially large gaps in his earlier work (80s thru early 90s) and in a certain amount of comedies which certainly...