Johnnie To at MoMA: Sparrow

Kei is no street urchin. However, the pickpocket usually earns enough from his work to leisurely idle away the rest of his time like the smooth gentleman he appears to be. His small four-man crew usually works unobtrusively. Unfortunately, when he notices an enigmatic woman, her crime lord captor notices Kei and his gang in Johnnie To’s Sparrow, which screens as part of MoMA’s ongoing retrospective.

With four razor blades and a few well-timed distractions, Kei, Bo, Mac, and Sak score a tidy but not exorbitant sum. It leaves time for Kei to practice photography with his vintage Rolleiflex on Hong Kong’s picturesque (but sadly disappearing) side streets and out-of-the-way cul-de-sacs. One day Chung Chun Lei steps into his viewfinder, making quite an impression. The next time he sees, Kei tries to follow her, but old sinister Mr. Fu always has eyes on her.

He also has Chung’s passport locked in his safe. It is uncertain how physical their dysfunctional relationship is, but his possessiveness is crystal clear. As a result, his chief enforcer Lung has all four pickpockets badly beaten. Of course, that rubs Kei the wrong way, especially when he figures out why.

In some ways, Sparrow (slang for pickpocket) is a perfectly representative Johnnie To film, featuring several of his regular players, including Simon Yam as Kei and Lam Suet as Lung. Yet, in other ways, it is absolutely atypical. Compared to most of To’s films, Sparrow is relatively quiet. The dialogue is rather sparse, but the soundtrack is spritely and often downright jazzy. Perhaps in an even greater departure, these gangsters never wield guns, but that hardly means anyone is safe.

Despite the noir themes and periodic violence, Sparrow also exhibits a slyly comedic visual sensibility, deliberately echoing the likes of Jacques Demy and Jacques Tati. There are several elaborate sequences that share an aesthetic kinship with dance just as much as action choreography. The climatic pickpocketing challenge is an especially grand crescendo.

Trivisa on Shudder

It is 1997, the year Mainland China and the United Kingdom agreed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, establishing a separate system of governance for Hong Kong for the next fifty years. Today, both nations are trying to forget 1997 ever happened. As the handover loomed, three notorious real-life gangsters assumed the new regime would crack down on their business. Little did they know the CCP would appoint an HK Chief of Police who was a reputed Triad associate—allegedly—[cough]. Given the mounting uncertainty, they hope to complete one big score—perhaps even together in Frank Hui, Jevons Au & Vicky Wong’s Trivisa, co-produced by the legendary Johnnie To, which premieres today on Shudder.

In 1997, the so-called “The Kings of Thieves” are all at a career crossroads. Kwai Ching-hung has survived as an armed bandit, despite the bloody opening shootout, because he generally focuses on smaller, manageable targets. However, that means he does not have much of a nest egg to fall back on.

In contrast, Yip Kwok-foon has pulled off some spectacularly lucrative jobs, but the resulting heat forced him to retire to the Mainland, where he runs a consumer electronics smuggling operation. It is a profitable business, but he must constantly bribe the Mainland cops, who go out of their way to belittle him.

Cheuk Tze-keung is still pulling off jobs in Hong Kong, but his boredom and arrogance are causing him to be increasingly reckless. Of the “Three Kings,” he is the most interested in the rumor they will be joining forces for an end-of-an-era gig, which did not originate with any of the trio in question. In fact, he starts offering a reward for information on the whereabouts of his other two colleagues, but he is scrupulously careful vetting tips, to keep the cops in the dark.

The Sanskrit title Trivisa is a bit too obscure, but do not let that dissuade you from this jolly dark and ironic gangster thriller. It is a reference to the “three poisons:” greed, anger, and delusion. Consider it the “Three Deadly Sins” instead. Indeed, this film really is about threes, because the trio of co-directors, Hui, Au, and Wong each focused on their own focal character: Kwai, Yip, and Chuek, respectively. Yet, even with the three directors working with their own cinematographers, the film feels very much like a consistent whole.

NYAFF ’17: Election

Big D is the Al Gore of the Triads. He assumed he was next in line for the two-year chairmanship of the Wo Shing Society, but the Uncles elected Lok instead. So, does he accept the results of the voting and concentrate on his own business? No, of course not. The resulting power struggle escalates into full-scale street violence in Johnnie To’s modern classic Election (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.

Frankly, Lok appears to be the more forward-thinking of the two candidates, whereas Big D can fly off the handle a wee bit. Slightly disappointed by the election results, Big D lashes out at two swing-voters he holds responsible. In response, the outgoing chairman dispatches his lieutenants to China with the Dagon Baton, which is ceremoniously handed down to each new chairman. Thus, begins a mad scramble between the two factions for strategic possession of the baton. However, most of the plotting will be done within prison after Chief Superintendent Hui has both candidates and several senior uncles arrested, in hopes of preventing open war.

This is the film that will probably always come up first when you google Johnnie To—and for good reason. For many, it was also their gateway drug into a full-on Hong Kong cinema addiction. It is a lean, mean, snarling machine of a film, but there is also something strangely beautiful about its savage austerity.

Both Simon Yam and “Big” Tony Leung Ka-fai give classic, career-defining performances as the diametrically-opposed Lok and Big D, respectively. There scenes together are pure movie magic—those who have seen it will instantly know what I mean.

They are indeed the bosses of bosses, but Election is fully loaded with first-rate supporting turns. Lam Suet and Gordon Lam are terrific as Big Head and Kun, two henchmen initially on opposite sides of the factional divide, who meet rather awkwardly. It is amazing to see superstars like Louis Koo and Nick Cheung getting relatively limited screen-time (at least in the initial film), but they burn up the joint with their hardboiled intensity. It is also cool to see Shaw Brothers mainstay David Chiang as the commanding Chief Superintendent. Yet, perhaps the late, great Wong Tin-lam’s quietly droll turn as Uncle Teng, the Uncle of Uncles, best personifies the crafty film.

Election would be followed by two sequels that would continue and deepen the story, reaching Shakespearean levels of tragedy. Hubris: it’s a killer. Yet, Election ends on a perfect note that certainly does not lack for closure. There is no question it is a contemporary classic. Very highly recommended, Election screens Friday (7/7) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Maggie Cheung at Metrograph: The Heroic Trio

Granted, Anita Mui was playing a completely different Wonder Woman, but Gal Gadot still has a tough act to follow. The Cantonese superheroine also had her own super-team, but they will not realize it until come together at the eleventh hour. Frankly, Warner Brothers might as well scrap their upcoming reboot, because who is going to care after the Metrograph reminds us of the spectacle that is Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio (trailer here), which screens as part of their retrospective series Maggie Cheung: Center Stage.

Wonder Woman fights crime, as well she should, as the alter ego of Tung, the wife of incorruptible Inspector Lau. Ching Ching, a.k.a. Sam, a.k.a., a.k.a. Third Chan, a.k.a. Invisible Girl is a reluctant criminal, bound to serve a supernatural eunuch determined to revive China’s imperial governance through infernal means. That leaves Chat or Thief Catcher or Mercy, a bounty hunter somewhere in between. She is played by Maggie Cheung, who rocks the wardrobe and flashes plenty of action chops.

There is a crime wave sweeping Hong Kong and not even the police chief’s family is safe. At the behest of Evil Master (the name tells you all you need to know), Sam (let’s use her shortest name) has abducted eighteen newborn infants, with one more to go. One of those so-called “princes” will become the new emperor, while the rest will be mutated into ogre-like killing machines, like the finger-eating Ninth Chan.

Wonder Woman is out to stop the abductions, using inside information gleaned from her husband. Upon learning his infant son is the next target, the chief hires Thief Catcher to capture Sam, but this turns out to be a costly decision when the mercenary makes a small tactical mistake. It very nearly costs her life as well, but both Wonder Woman and Sam intercede to save her. Eventually, Sam is going to join them in the fight for justice, once Ninth Chan gives her that extra bit of heart-breaking motivation.

As a film, Heroic Trio is pretty darned nuts. To basically calls and raises John Woo, cranking the fog machine up to eleven and including at least one scene with birds. If you are the pedantic sort, this film just might make your head explode, but it has massive guts. Kids die in this movie—like, a lot of them. Yet, it is still great fun, in large measure thanks to Cheung. She plays the prima donna bounty hunter to the hilt, preening for the press and laying down ultra-stylish beat-downs.

All three heroines definitely got the memo and they came to play. Michelle Yeoh gets to be the most tragic, whereas Mui develops some pleasing chemistry with Damian Lau as the clueless Inspector husband, but they all kick butt and exude a dangerous Irma Vep-like allure. Lau is indeed solid in support while Anthony Wong radiates evil as Ninth Chan. It is always strange to see him in these early thuggish roles, knowing he would evolve into an actor of tremendous gravitas and an outspoken activist.

The term “over the top” does not do justice to the lunacy of The Heroic Trio, but it is tough to beat the combination of Cheung, Yeoh, and Mui. They just don’t make superhero movies like this anymore. Highly recommended for fans of any and all involved, The Heroic Trio screens this Thursday (12/15) at Metrograph, as part of Maggie Cheung: Center Stage, along with other unforgettable Cheung films, including Ashes of Time Redux, Irma Vep, and fittingly Center Stage.

Johnnie To’s Three

The title comes from a truncated Confucius quote regarding humility that sort of works in the original Cantonese Chinese context. In Western markets, it vaguely seems to relate to the central trio of characters, whose pride most likely will cometh before a fall. However, knowing fan favorite Lam Suet has a considerable supporting role will probably be much more interesting to American audiences than the participation of C-pop star Wallace Chung, especially considering this is a Johnnie To film. Although it is smaller in scope than his gangster classics, To still delivers the goods in Three (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It has been a bad day for Dr. Tong Qian —and it will soon get far worse. She has had a string of unfortunate surgeries, including the now partially paralyzed young man, who constantly berates her whenever she walks through the recovery ward. Of course, she is hardly the sort of doctor to admit a mistake. This is all beside the point to her latest hard case patient.

Frankly, Inspector Chen hoped his prisoner would never make it to the hospital. That bullet wound to the head was no accident. Yet, in a freakish turn of fate, the bullet became precariously lodged in the perp’s skull. The prognosis would be decent if he would consent to surgery, but the armed robber refuses. Instead, he bides his time fully conscious, waiting for his gang to break him loose. Inspector Chen figures they are coming, but they are actually already there.

Granted, Three isn’t Election or Drug War or [insert your favorite Johnnie To movie here], but it is a lean and mean, finely tuned thriller machine. It also further demonstrates To’s ability to get the best out of HK superstar Louis Koo, who broods like a monster as the hard-nosed but slightly neurotic Inspector Chen. Vicki Zhao Wei really plays against type, out-angsting Koo as the insecure doctor with the sub-par bedside manner. Chung chews the scenery with cinematic glee, more than exceeding expectations, but Lam Suet makes the film as the sad sack member of Chen’s task force. He starts out as comic relief, but gets serious as a heart attack in the second act.

Any HK thriller set in a hospital is bound to bring to mind John Woo’s Hard Boiled, but To goes for more of an intimate Desperate Hours kind of vibe, pulling it off quite nicely. Still, he must be cognizant of the echoes, since he throws in a Battleship Potemkin reference for good measure. Regardless, it all adds up to a lot of fun. Recommended for fans of the action auteur and his big name cast, To’s Three opens this Friday (6/24) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Johnnie To’s Office

It is the corporate headquarters of Jones & Sunn, a large Mainland financial services conglomerate, but it looks like it exists in the world of Chaplin’s Modern Times. Never has the white collar workplace been so surreal, yet so uncomfortably credible in a Bloomberg bullpen kind of way. The impending IPO represents a heck of a payday for everyone, if by everyone you mean the charismatic chairman and his not so secret lover, the CEO, but Lehman Brothers complicates everything in Johnnie To’s musical adaptation of Sylvia Chang’s zeitgeisty play, Office (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York, after premiering at this year’s TIFF.

Yes, Johnnie To has made a movie musical—and why not? It is one more cinematic peak he summited. The music is not bad, but the design is simply extraordinary. Note there is no article before this Office. It is a strictly serious, high stakes environment. Ambitious junior managers like Sophie understand they have to move up or out, but there is not a lot of room above her. She has the ambiguous “support” of VP David Wang, who in turn is the “favorite” of CEO Winnie Chang. She is a somewhat scandalous figure for openly carrying on with the chairman, Ho Chung-ping while his wife remains in a persistent coma.

Into this thorny nest of office politics come two fresh-faced management trainees. Li Xiang is a guileless go-getter, who somewhat charms Chang in spite of herself. Yet, the mysterious Kat probably has the inside track being the chairman’s daughter, working under an assumed name to avoid improper appearances. Frankly though, nepotism will be the least of everyone’s worries.

At the risk of excessive repetition, it should be emphasized just how incredible designer William Chang’s sets look. They brilliantly blend the austerity of postmodernism with the expressionism of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Sylvia’s Chang’s narrative is unusually complex, but it is nice to see a film refrain from dumbing down the content. Of course, some themes are universal, like the corporate equivalent of the aging diva and naïve ingénue struggling to hold onto their piece of the pie. However, her source play resonated with Chinese audiences newly coming to terms with the salaryman blues in ways that will feel familiar to American viewers. Welcome to the party, its spectacular, isn’t it?

In all honesty, the tunes are just okay, but Eason Chan demonstrates major vocal chops as David Wang. On the other hand, Tang Wei looks like she just wants to get through her numbers as quickly as possible, but in all other respects, her work as Sophie is sensitively rendered and deeply affecting. Still, Sylvia Chang clearly saved the prime cuts for herself, digging into Winnie Chang’s Joan Crawfordness with relish we can all share. She also develops some charmingly undefinable chemistry with Wang Ziyi’s Li Xiang. It is also cool to watch Chow Yun-fat strut his stuff as the chairman of the board, because that is basically what he is to Hong Kong cinema.

When Johnnie To does a musical, you have to see it. It sounds fine, but Tang, Sylvia Chang, and William Chang’s eye-popping corporate HQ give the audience plenty to watch. Recommended for To faithful ready for his next departure and fans of the all-star cast, Office opens this Friday (9/18) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

SFFS Hong Kong Cinema ’13: Blind Detective

He is sort of a consulting detective, whose bedside manner is about as warm and friendly as Holmes at his chilliest.  Chong “Johnston” Si-teun has a sizeable ego and an even larger chip on his shoulder, but he is not without empathy—for the dead.  Somehow, he still might find love with a far less deductive copper (his personal Lestrade) in Johnnie To’s genre blender, Blind Detective (trailer here), which screens on the opening night of the 2013 edition of the San Francisco Film Society’s annual Hong Kong Cinema series.

Johnston’s sudden onset of blindness forced him to retire as police detective, but he still solves crimes for a living.  He now relies on reward bounties, particularly those still valid for cold cases. Impressed by his results, Inspector Ho Ka-tung retains his services to find her long missing high school friend, Minnie. She has always been good with firearms and martial arts, but the cerebral side of detective work has always troubled her.  Promising to teach her his methods, Johnston moves into her spacious pad, but immediately back-burners Minnie’s case in favor of several expiring bounties.

The half-annoyed Ho indulges Johnston for a while, eventually embracing his extreme re-enactment techniques.  Blind arguably reaches its zenith when Johnston and Ho recreate a grisly murder conveniently set in a morgue, strapping on helmets and whacking each other over the head with hammers.  If you ever wanted to see the Three Stooges remakes Silence of the Lambs, To delivers the next closest thing.  Of course, their search for Minnie soon percolates back to the surface, when Johnston starts to suspect she fell victim to a serial killer preying broken-hearted young women.

Much like the old cliché about the weather, if you don’t like the tone of Blind Detective, just wait five minutes, because it will change.  You do not see many films incorporating elements of romantic comedy, slapstick farce, and dark serial killer thrillers, probably for good reason.  To gives roughly equal weight to all three, yet it all hangs together better than one might expect.

Sammi Cheng is a major reason Blind works to the extent that it does. It is great to see her Inspector Ho act as the film’s primary action figure and her radiant presence lights up the screen.  She develops decent chemistry with Andy Lau’s Johnston, but he looks profoundly uncomfortable in the intuitive curmudgeon’s skin. However, To fans will be relieved to hear Lam Suet duly turns up as a fugitive gambler hiding out in Macao.

To also delivers plenty of bang for the audience’s bucks in the third act. There are some distinctly creepy bits and a fair amount of suspense.  On the other hand, a drawn out subplot involving Johnston’s long held crush on a dance instructor chews up plenty of time but serves little purpose except to telegraph the feelings beginning to stir between the odd couple detectives.  

Thanks to two well executed showdowns, Cheng’s winning performance, and some evocative Hong Kong locales, Blind Detective chugs along steadily enough for a while and picks up mucho momentum down the stretch.  Recommended for To fans and those with a taste for comedic mysteries, Blind Detective screens this Friday night (10/4) at the Vogue Theatre as part of the SFFS’s 2013 Hong Kong Cinema series.  Action aficionados should also check out Chow Yun-fat’s massive return to form in Wong Jing’s The Last Tycoon screening Saturday (10/5) and Sunday (10/6) at the same venue.

NYAFF ’13: Drug War

Divide-and-conquer and playing one opponent against another might sound like shrewd Art of War strategies, but they can land you in the midst a crossfire.  Frankly, there is no safe place to be in Johnnie To’s Drug War (trailer here).  The HK action auteur’s lean, mean return to form screens today at the 2013 New York Asian Film Festival just ahead of its July 26^th New York opening, courtesy of Well Go USA, the intrepid distributor getting a special shout-out at this year’s festival with their own special programming spotlight.

“I’m cop—I didn’t betray you, I busted you.”  Captain Zhang Lei’s choice words for the somewhat disappointed drug courier he just collared will echo throughout To’s first gangster throwdown set and co-produced in Mainland China.  Zhang also reeled in a bigger fish: Timmy Choi, a meth lab proprietor and trusted liaison between various criminal factions.

Facing the death penalty, Choi agrees to play ball with Zhang.  He will introduce Zhang to Brother Haha, a distribution kingpin looking for product and the representative of a shadowy supply consortium.  At each meeting, Zhang pretends to be the opposite gangster, in hopes of taking down both operations simultaneously.  He is not absolutely, positively sure he can trust Choi, but it is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Unusually gritty compared to the operatic Vengeance and Exiled, the first two acts of Drug War are essentially street-level procedurals, but darn good ones.  To shows us the nuts and bolts of the Tianjin drug squad at work, as well as the extreme lengths Zhang will go to take down his targets.  However, when it is finally go time, Drug War erupts into cold, hard, violent bedlam.

As Zhang, Sun Honglei is the absolute essence of hard-nosed steeliness.  Initially, it is rather jarring to hear him giggling in the guise of Haha, put he pulls that off too.  Likewise, Louis Koo will make viewers forget all about his recent leading man rom-com roles in his coldest, weasliest performance in years, even if he was dubbed for Mandarin speaking audiences.  His Choi is truly a survivor, like a cockroach. 

To fans will also being relieved to hear Lam Suet eventually turns up, as a criminal mastermind, no less.  Aside from a bit of comic relief here and there, the soldier-like supporting cast sets the right tone, particularly the glammed-down, nonsense Crystal Huang as Zhang’s colleague, Yang Xiabei.

The massively cool Drug War does not just pack a punch.  It is more like a body slam.  Critics and fans were concerned whether To’s hardboiled brand of crime drama would fly in China, but somehow he slipped this pitch black gem past the Party goalie.  A case of a master filmmaker and an all-star cast working at the tops of their respective games, Drug War is very highly recommended for action and gangster movie enthusiasts.  It screens today (7/5) at the Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s NYAFF and opens its regular IFC Center engagement for the Fest feted Well Go USA on Friday the 26^th.

Submitted by Hong Kong: Life Without Principle

The Academy’s rules for best foreign language film submissions can be real head-scratchers.  Just by giving the decision-making power to the countries of original they virtual guaranteed no dissident cinema will ever be nominated.  This year, Hong Kong’s official submission was actually in local theaters before last year’s submission, but the both met the official requirements.  Regardless, Hong Kong has put forward a number of excellent films in recent years, without getting any love from Oscar.  Following Johnnie To’s super-cool Exiled, Alex Law’s exceptional Echoes of the Rainbow, and Ann Hui’s understated but powerful A Simple Life, Hong Kong has officially submitted To’s ripped-from-the-headlines Life Without Principle (trailer here), which is already available on DVD.

Greece is about to cause a lot of trouble for hard working Hong Kong residents on both sides of the law.  As the socialist basket case threatens to drag down the world economy, it will leave a number of people in precarious positions.  Inspector Cheung Jin-fong would not know anything about that.  Like usual, he is working a case, but his wife is about to enter into a dubious mortgage so they can purchase the apartment of her dreams.

That transaction will bring her to the office of Teresa, who is currently ranking dead last amongst her fellow boiler room colleagues.  Aware her job is on the line, she sells a dodgy BRIC fund to an elderly client, who really should have known better.  Teresa would really prefer to get her hands on some of the money loan shark Yuen has in his account, but he is strictly a cash man. 

As it turns out, others have had this idea too.  When underworld investment banker Lung loses the wrong people’s money during the ensuing financial panic, he and his low level Triad crony Panther plot to rob Yuen after he makes a withdrawal.  Again, they are not the only ones with that idea.

Principle skips about quite a bit, flashing forward and backward in time, while crisscrossing between its various characters.  Yet, To and his regular editor David Richardson maintain narrative clarity throughout.  Still, it is a bit of a slow starter, with much of the first act devoted to making the financial sector look like venal sharks.  Frankly, if Teresa’s dear old sucker is not suspicious after they make her watch several cautionary videos and sign off on waiver after waiver, than you wonder how she navigates a big bad city like HK.

Nonetheless, when the gangsterism intersects with the financial shenanigans, the picture really begins to click.  Here To is back on familiar turf.  Lau Ching-wan, Philip Keung, and Lo Hoi-pang ham it up with gusto as the in-over-his-head Panther, the sleazy Lung, and the even sleazier Yuen, respectively.  J.J. Jia also has some memorable moments as Lung’s femme fatale colleague, Ms. Ho.  Yet, though perfectly cast as the taciturn copper, Richie Jen (another To/Milky Way team regular) is oddly short-changed on screen time throughout Principle.

Principle is an entertaining film, but it does not pack the same punch as Simple Life or Echoes.  On the other hand, its financial tsk-tsking might appeal more to Academy voters.  At least To’s international reputation ought to earn it an attentive audience when it screens for the Academy’s foreign language committee.  Currently streaming on Netflix, Life Without Principle is a strong closer, definitely recommended for fans of HK film, but just not as satisfying as To’s Exiled and Vengeance.

SFFS HK Cinema ’12: Romancing in Thin Air

Is it the altitude sickness making Michael Lau nauseous or is it love?  Whichever, the binge drinking is not helping much.  Nevertheless, the heartbroken superstar might pull himself together and find real love with the help of a former fan.  Action auteur Johnnie To takes another Mainland pleasing foray into relationship drama territory with Romancing in Thin Air (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s crowd-pleasing second annual Hong Kong Cinema Festival.

Michael Lau is coincidentally a lot like Louis Koo, the actor who plays him.  Both are popular HK romantic leads with a background in music.  Lau is going through a rough patch though.  He was to marry his co-star in an ultra-glitzy ceremony, only to be very publicly dumped at the altar.  Lau takes refuge in the bottle—hard.  Stowing away in Sue’s vintage army truck, Lau finds himself at her rustic mountain lodge, way above sea level and sick as a dog.

Sue is a widow who will not allow herself to mourn.  One night her sensitive mountain man husband went out into the forest in search of a lost child, but never returned.  Yet, Sue keeps the lodge exactly as he left it in the unrealistic hope will eventually walk through the front door.  Of course, these two broken hearts are perfect for each other, but they will have to learn that the hard way.

Johhnie To can kick it in any genre, but his previous rom-com (heavier on the rom), Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (which screened at the SFFS’s HK fest last year), travels better.  Frankly, it is hard to believe some of the things Lau does to win over/back Sue do not have the opposite effect.  However, the first two acts put a nice twist on the Notting Hill concept, establishing Sue as former Michael Lau fan club member and revealing the role the idol’s career played in her courtship with the missing Tian.

Having already proved to be a successful box-office pairing, Koo and Sammi Cheng indeed have some nice chemistry together.  Conversely, the supporting characters do not have a lot of meat to them, seemingly existing just to bring the two together.  That includes Li Guangjie’s impossibly taciturn Tian.

Clearly, both To and cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung love the mountain backdrop, luxuriating in its harsh snowcapped beauty.  Guy Zerafa’s lyrical piano score was probably supposed to be syrupier, but is actually quite elegant and evocative.  Despite some over-the-top elements here or there, Thin takes its central relationship seriously, which is endearing.  It is also an example of a genuine leading man turn from Koo, yet he is also obviously and deliberately having some fun with his own image.  Recommended for sentimental romantics, Romancing in This Air screens this Sunday (9/23) as the SFFS’s Hong Kong Cinema Festival continues at the New People Cinema.

Ann Hui’s understated but emotionally powerful A Simple Life also screens earlier that same day (9/23).  Based on a true story, it follows a decent but hardly heroic movie producer as he tries his best to look after his family’s elderly servant after she suffers a stroke.  An actors’ showcase for Andy Lau and Deanie Ip, it is a tearjerker with too much self-respect to jerk tears.  Highly recommended, a full review can be found here.

Accident: Things Happen for a Reason

Ho Kwok-fai is not living in a random universe.  Accidents happen for a reason: money.  He would know.  He is the mastermind behind a team of “accident choreographers.”  Unfortunately, they have apparently attracted the wrong sort of attention from a competitor in Accident (trailer here), Soi Cheang’s moody thriller produced by HK action legend Johnnie To, which releases today on DVD and Blu-ray from Shout Factory.

Though not quite as Rube Goldbergian, Ho’s team are like a Final Destination movie unto themselves.  Just ask the Triad boss in the opening sequence, while you can.  “The Brain” runs the show with tick-tock precision, but a dark cloud seems to hang over their latest gig.  “Uncle” starts to show signs of dementia and the necessary rain will not come.  Then the wheels come totally off.

Going underground, Ho starts surveilling an insurance executive he suspects played a part in the disastrous non-accident.  Already haunted by his wife’s fatal auto crash, his psyche will sink to some pretty low places.  Rather than a standard hitman-on-the-run film, Accident treads a more existential path, in the tradition of Coppola’s The Conversation (granted, it is not exactly in the same league).

In the years since To’s Election epic most of what American audiences have seen of Louis Koo were romantic or comedic features, like Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, Magicto Win, and All’s Well Ends Well 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009.  Nonetheless, he shows plenty of screen grit in Accident, brooding like mad, yet getting stone cold medieval when necessary.  As a bonus, Lam Suet, To’s regular comic relief specialist, brings his usual energy, but plays Ho’s stout but not shticky henchman “Fatty” with considerable restraint.

Viewers who have seen a lot of Hollywood-produced thrillers will probably be downright shocked by Accident, precisely because of their preconditioning.  Indeed, Cheang is willing to take it in a direction studio filmmakers never would, which is cool.  Of course, knowing it is produced by To and his Milkyway Image team is something of a seal of approval in and of itself.  Enthusiastically recommended for fans of noir thrillers and HK cinema, Accident is now available on DVD at online and quality brick-and-mortar retailers everywhere.

HK Cinema at SFFS: Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

It must be a sign of the zeitgeist when HK action auteur Johnnie To and his frequent collaborator Wai Ka-fai set their latest film in the world of high finance in a deliberate attempt to appeal to Mainland audiences. What would Madame Mao say? Yet, their love triangle rom-dramedy is the sort of material that has appealed to average movie patrons for generations. Still, they do instill Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (trailer here) with enough in-the-now to make it quite a fitting and appropriate way to close the San Francisco Film Society’s first class Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday.

Chang Zixin is smart enough to predict the recent global “hard correction,” but she is not so shrewd in love. Yet in a promising development, she has been flirting with the Cheung Shen-ran, whose fat corner office can be seen from her bullpen station. As will happen in rom-coms, he inadvertently asks both her and the hottie in the office below her out for coffee at the same time. In a moment of weakness, he chooses the one with the larger endowments and lives to regret it.

Cheung is not the only one interested in Chang. Fate also brought her together with Fang Qi-hong, a spiritually down-and-out architect, more interested in boozing than building. He gave her a little confidence after last break-up and she gave him her ex’s pet frog. She also inspired him to clean up his act and fall in love with her. Not so suddenly, the bottom falls out of the market, taking Cheung down with it. Three years later, he returns to the game as Chang’s new boss. Across the way, Fang’s new architectural firm has taken over Cheung old office space. Let the rivalry begin.

Despite the disruption of the financial bubble, Heart is not really about the sort-of-great crash. It is however, very definitely preoccupied with the near-misses and hyper-connected loneliness of contemporary urban professionals. For its three principals, the mere act of making a connection must be significant, because it is so unlikely.

Yet, if it all sounds dour and serious, rest assured To and Wai keep the tone largely towards the lighter side. They also have the benefit of three ridiculously attractive primary cast members, as well as To regular Suet Lam as an office manager very much in the Ricky Gervais tradition. However, Gao Yaunyuan’s Chang is so radiantly cute, it is hard to understand how the heck Cheung keeps blowing it with her. Not just a HK Bridget Jones, she is actually a smart, self-aware fully-dimensional woman.

Frankly, the degree to which To and Wai stack the deck in favor of Fang eventually becomes a tad ridiculous. The comfortable old-shoe charisma Daniel Wu projects as Fang further exaggerates the disparity between her suitors. While he might be rich, it is hard to fathom how Louis Ko’s preening smugness as Cheung could be appealing to anyone. Still, Chang’s investment of time and emotional commitment is understandably difficult to walk away from.

Considering how unbalanced it is, Heart ought to be termed an isosceles love triangle. Yet, somehow To, Wai, Gao, and basic human nature maintain a sense of uncertainty as to whom she will ultimately choose. That is saying something for this genre. Stylish executed (even with the 1980’s-ish pop and smooth jazz soundtrack), Heart even features an enormous CGI-skyscraper, rising as triumphant testimony to the power of love. Lehman Brothers references notwithstanding, it is essentially a old school movie romance and a rather satisfying one at that. Though doubtlessly a disappointment for most To fans, Heart will be a pleasant conclusion to the Hong Kong Cinema series this coming Sunday (9/25) at the New People Cinema in San Francisco.

HK Cinema at SFFS: Punished

Wong Ho-chiu is the sort of tycoon who has an ex-con on staff, just in case things need taking care. Indeed, they will. The iron-willed developer is not the sort of man you want to make an enemy of. Yet a small band of kidnappers does exactly that in Law Wing-cheong’s Punished (trailer here), which screens Saturday night as part of the San Francisco Film Society’s Hong Kong Cinema series.

The hard partying Daisy Wong expects her father to fund her dissolute lifestyle, despite her frequent tantrums. Wong is not inclined to indulge her, but his younger second wife and bodyguard-slash-whatever Chor do their best to cool his temper. When she is abducted, he half-suspects she is complicit in the crime. Alas, not so. After things go profoundly badly, the distraught Wong turns to Chor to provide him a measure of justice, revenge, or closure. For Wong, they are all more or less the same thing.

Produced by HK action auteur Johnnie To, Punished is quite restrained compared to his thematically related Vengeance. Indeed, Punished is more in the tradition of the moody, psychologically tormented first Death Wish film, rather than the body count-generating sequels that followed. Still, Chor has a job to do and he is the man to do it.

To regular (including in the aforementioned Vengeance) Anthony Wong is about the flintiest, steeliest older cat appearing in film today. He makes Tommy Lee Jones look like a weak-kneed old softy. While as hardnosed as ever, Wong (as Wong) forcefully conveys the father’s grief, guilt, and existential self-doubt, shockingly so, in fact. Likewise, Richie Ren (another To regular) is quite compelling and grounded as the avenging everyman anti-hero, Chor. Law and screenwriter Chi Keung-fung wisely hint at his checkered past and strained personal relationships instead of spelling out his back-story in painful detail. When the game is on though, he is all business. In the solid supporting ensemble, Maggie Cheung Ho-yee (the other one) also makes a strong impression as Wong’s smart, sophisticated pseudo-trophy wife.

While Ren administers some serious beatdowns, Punished is really a dark morality play about the ultimate costs of retribution. It might end on a nakedly manipulative note, but Wong and Ren totally sell it, nonetheless. A raw, muscular film, Punished is definitely one of the highlights of the SFFS’s HK series. Highly recommended, it screens Saturday night (9/24) at the New Peoples Cinema.

Johnnie To’s Vengeance

Imagine if Elvis had made a Shaw Brothers’ kung fu movie. Okay, maybe it is not quite that epic, but any collaboration between HK action auteur Johnnie To and French rock icon Johnny Hallyday is still seriously cool. Indeed, fans of To’s hardboiled spectacles will not be disappointed in Vengeance (trailer here), an official selection of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, which opens this Friday in New York at the IFC Center.

Tragedy brings Frenchman Francis Costello to Macao. His son-in-law and young grandsons were mercilessly gunned by triads, while his daughter just barely clings to life. The coppers are useless, but Costello gets a break when he witnesses a hit squad wrapping up a job in his hotel. Rather than dropping a dime, he offers them a contract: his family’s killers, whoever they might be. Further complicating matters, a bullet long lodged in Costello’s brain will eventually rob him of his memories. For a chef though, he sure knows his way around guns.

Essentially, Vengeance is another reworking of the formula To perfected in films like Exiled and The Mission, with a crew of hired guns, led each time by the steely Anthony Wong, turning against their underworld patron, as usual played by Simon Yam, to help a fast friend. In To’s case, the variations on the theme are always richly satisfying. Again, he demonstrates a knack for elevating familiar action set-ups to grandly theatrical heights.

Arguably, the flinty Wong is the best action actor working in international theater today. All kinds of bad, his intense screen presence compares with Eastwood in his prime. As for Hallyday, he seems to be channeling old school noir Robert Mitchum as the grizzled father out for revenge. He has the goods.

To really brings out the inner fan boy in HK film lovers (such as myself). Riddled with style, but following directly in tradition of great samurai and ronin films, his gangsters live outside the law, yet scrupulously observe their own code of honor. Thanks to the inspired addition of Hallyday, Vengeance ranks as one of his best. Highly recommended for those who enjoy artfully rendered movie mayhem, Vengeance opens this Friday (12/10) in New York at the IFC Center.

Hard Boiled HK: Exiled

It is late 1998, right before the Portuguese handover of Macau to China. Most people are looking for an opportunity to get out, but one banished gangster decides to return home. Though set in Macau, Johnnie To’s Exiled (trailer here) was Hong Kong’s official 2007 submission for best foreign language Oscar consideration. Dripping with style, it is an exemplary representative of the work of action-oriented auteurs like To, whom the Los Angeles County Museum of Art celebrates with their on-going weekend retrospective Hard Boiled Hong Kong.

After crossing Boss Fay, Wo took to the wind. However, he has returned to Macau, hoping to live quietly with his wife and newborn son. That is not likely to happen, if Blaze and his partner have anything to say about. However, two of Wo’s childhood gangster friends also turn up. After a getting to know you shootout, they proceed to help Wo move in. Realizing his options are limited, the fab four help Wo pull one last job for the sake of his wife and son. Bullets will most certainly fly.

Though widely compared to Spaghetti Westerns (particularly due to the romantic looking Portuguese architecture) Exiled really follows directly in the tradition of great samurai films by the likes of Kurosawa and Gosha. Much like those wandering ronin, Wo and his friends often invite fate to chose their path. Likewise, all five adhere to an ironclad code of honor, despite living outside the law.

To is one of the world’s great directors of gunplay, sitting at the (bloody) crossroads of art-house cinema and genre programmers. Throughout Exiled he sets up familiar action premises, but always gives them an inventive twist. Cinematographer Cheng Siu Keung gives it all a rich Miami Vice gloss, befitting To’s uber-cool attitude and technique.

Though not a sequel, Exiled deliberately echoes To’s The Mission, with four mercenary friends trying to save a fifth from an out-of-sorts crime boss, in both cases played by Simon Yam. Though there are many familiar faces from HK cinema (including Mission alumnus Lam Suet, Roy Cheung, and Francis Ng), Anthony Wong blows everyone off the screen as the somewhat older, much more jaded Blaze. He out-Eastwoods Eastwood in the steely-eyed badness department.

A thoroughly entertaining action exercise and a surprisingly wistful Fin de siècle tragedy, Exiled is one of the more artful gangster films of recent vintage. It screens tonight (11/20) at LACMA (where Hard Boiled Hong Kong continues through November 27th) and also streams on Netflix.