Johnnie To: Hong Kong Action Master
For 30 years, Johnnie To has directed genre films that succeed both at the box office and with critics. To’s hard-boiled cinema frequently delineates the overlapping worlds of cops and gangsters, reveling in their shared endurance of tedious stakeouts, corrupt political machinations, and existential crises. A master of collapsing wildly disparate tones into a coherent vision, To can seamlessly veer from widescreen visual comedy to shocking violence over the span of a single, well-timed edit. The most eccentric and formally ambitious of the filmmakers to emerge from Hong Kong cinema in recent decades, To’s style is on full display in the three fresh and unpredictable action films chosen for this series. (MK)
Note: Tsui Hark's production, The Heroic Trio, directed by Johnnie To, screens as part of our "Marquee Mondays" series on March 26.
- Fri., Mar. 9 | 5:30 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Join us for a special lecture by David Bordwell!
Johnnie To Kei-fung is one of the most important directors in world cinema today. Moving between romantic comedies and crime dramas, he has reinvigorated local Hong Kong film culture and given Hong Kong film a new international profile. Since the "golden age" of the 1980s, his elegant, sly, often surprising films have adapted to the changing market place while achieving a unique place on the film festival circuit. This talk surveys his career, charts his pragmatic survival strategies, and investigates his cinematic originality. The talk highlights the films being screened by the Cinematheque this semester, all of them rarely seen in 35mm prints.
- Fri., Mar. 9 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
This fast-paced action spectacle follows a company of Hong Kong firefighters rescuing people from car crashes, talking suicidal doctors off of skyscraper ledges, and hosing down enough pyrotechnics to put Backdraft to shame. As the suspense culminates in a bravura 45-minute firefight that sees the team trapped inside a burning factory, To capitalizes on the surfeit of smoke, fire, and water to indulge in some of the most breathtaking imagery of his career. (MK)
- Fri., Mar. 16 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
An unlikely alliance between rival assassins forms the basis for this uncharacteristically baroque shoot-em-up by director To. The first Milkyway film for which To took a directing credit, A Hero Never Dies both parodies and revels in the hard-boiled operatics of Hong Kong’s previous action master, John Woo (especially A Better Tomorrow). “Milkyway’s finest achievement… madly walks the tightrope between ridiculous bathos and a soaring romanticism that transcends all notions of genre.” – Senses of Cinema (MK)
- Fri., Mar. 23 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
Johnnie To’s eccentric style came into full flower with this spare masterpiece. After a triad boss narrowly escapes an assassination attempt, his brother hires a motley group of thugs as amateur bodyguards. The clan works with efficient ruthlessness, until one of them starts sleeping with the boss’s wife. In a virtuosic series of minimalist set pieces, To flexes his knack for dwelling on incidental moments without stalling the action, creating a gangster film that privileges precision over bombast. (MK)