Well maybe not Hitchcock, or only insofar in its 'look'
Just a really lush movie
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 02:51 (ten years ago) link
yeah i'm gonna hunt that one down! it is too bad so many of his films are impossible to find. the mission deserves something more than the crappy import dvd i have.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Monday, 30 December 2013 05:08 (ten years ago) link
http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/3000-police-raid-chinese-meth-cooking-village-in-crackdown.html
Were they cooking meth in Drug War? I don't recall
― 龜, Monday, 6 January 2014 11:21 (ten years ago) link
Yes.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Monday, 6 January 2014 14:11 (ten years ago) link
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/state-television-airs-footage-of-major-drug-raid/
― 龜, Wednesday, 15 January 2014 16:14 (ten years ago) link
a 60th b'day appreciationlookin fwd to the musical
http://moviemezzanine.com/johnnie-to-essay/
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Friday, 24 April 2015 14:49 (nine years ago) link
Tnx for that Morbs
Miss omar little :\
― 龜, Friday, 24 April 2015 15:05 (nine years ago) link
thx morbs
― Nhex, Friday, 24 April 2015 18:14 (nine years ago) link
drug war was probably the best new film i saw last year. as with other of his films, for an action/genre movie it lingers in a surprisingly complex way.
i still think his best run, overall, was a few years around the end of the '90s, but sadly those films are among the ones that are tied up in rights issues and thus are harder to come by (especially in decent-looking editions). i'm talking about:
a hero never dies / expect the unexpected / the longest nite / where a good man goes / running out of time / the mission
what i'd give for a nice blu-ray criterion set of those films! call it "milkyway at fin de siecle" or something.
(you could go back a few years and include lifeline, beyond hypothermia, and too many ways to be no. 1--and it would be the best thing ever.)
― he quipped with heat (amateurist), Friday, 24 April 2015 22:05 (nine years ago) link
Chow-Yun Fat sings
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-toronto-2015-johnnie-tos-office
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 05:20 (eight years ago) link
reviews are pretty good...
http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/review-office/
apparently only NYC engagement is in Whitestone, Queens!
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, 18 September 2015 19:54 (eight years ago) link
it's not very focused but it's fun (also it's playing at amc times square)
has nomar seen sparrow yet??
― 龜, Sunday, 27 September 2015 20:32 (eight years ago) link
not yet! i have no idea where to get a copy. might have to order it? the local dvd rental place just closed down, they tended to get all if not most To movies.
office looks amazing imo.
― nomar, Monday, 19 October 2015 18:11 (eight years ago) link
let me clear out some dropbox space maybe? i actually don't think i have any way of reaching you outside ilx haha
― 龜, Monday, 19 October 2015 18:15 (eight years ago) link
just hit you up with my email ;)
― nomar, Monday, 19 October 2015 18:22 (eight years ago) link
;)
― 龜, Monday, 19 October 2015 18:44 (eight years ago) link
OFFICE tonight at NYC MoMA in 3D
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 21 November 2015 18:42 (eight years ago) link
real heads caught it at the times square amc
― 龜, Saturday, 21 November 2015 18:50 (eight years ago) link
well this was free for me
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 21 November 2015 19:04 (eight years ago) link
龜: i finally managed to watch SPARROW. thanks again for sending it my way.
damn to's such a good director. and simon yam is so good. he's a great and underrated lead actor, in total cary grant charm mode here but hanging onto that "yamsian" element of menace a bit. he's probably the most effortlessly chill of all HK dudes imo. and actually it's funny to think that, for me at least and probably many others, he made his stateside rep with this crazy psycho performance in 'full contact'. and he's done a few others like that as well, i.e. 'run and kill'. also he looks only about five years older here (movie is from '08) than he did in '92.
totally swell movie and beautifully composed and with a big heart, generous to all the characters, even the purported villain. enjoyed lam suet's borderline cameo mini role. and gordon lam is always a welcome presence.
i'd like to hang out w/kelly lin tbh.
― nomar, Thursday, 3 December 2015 18:26 (eight years ago) link
btw i was thinking about THE MISSION recently too. listen to the balearic jams in this scene, it sounds like The Studio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4bXobWSn8
― nomar, Thursday, 3 December 2015 18:33 (eight years ago) link
reposting from above obv, vid was deleted before
― nomar, Thursday, 3 December 2015 18:36 (eight years ago) link
glad you liked it nomar! :)
― 龜, Thursday, 10 December 2015 15:26 (eight years ago) link
https://mrjagofilm.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/sparrow-1.gif
― nomar, Thursday, 10 December 2015 15:34 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/xuqIQID.jpg
― 龜, Thursday, 10 December 2015 15:39 (eight years ago) link
just want to recommend the film 'expect the unexpected' to everyone; might be my favorite to film. he's made some of his very best films since this time, but he was really on a roll from 1996 to 2000.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 10 December 2015 18:27 (eight years ago) link
anyone seen THROWDOWN?
― nomar, Thursday, 10 December 2015 18:32 (eight years ago) link
yeah, that's one of his weirdest films; lots of tonal shifts that are hard to adjust to at first. but i have grown to really like it.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 10 December 2015 18:41 (eight years ago) link
rewatched the mission last night. best scene is them playing paper football outside the boss's office
― 龜, Monday, 21 March 2016 18:32 (eight years ago) link
that's one of the best movies of the last i don't even know how many years. it's brilliant. to has always made good movies, but his streak from about 1996 to 2001 was incredible.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Monday, 21 March 2016 19:10 (eight years ago) link
<3 Francis Ng
― Wes Brodicus, Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:15 (eight years ago) link
anyone seen OFFICE?
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:44 (eight years ago) link
me and morbs have seen it
― 龜, Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:51 (eight years ago) link
how is it? it's finally getting a single screening in my neck of the woods in a few weeks.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:52 (eight years ago) link
also yeah paper football scene in the mission is great; to is really good at scenes of people hanging out (see also 1/2 of "expect the unexpected")
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:53 (eight years ago) link
it's okay? it's a great piece of technique
― 龜, Tuesday, 22 March 2016 13:58 (eight years ago) link
anyone seen Three? only playing at a 42nd St plex here.
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/three-2016
― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 28 June 2016 19:33 (seven years ago) link
sounds interesting
― Nhex, Tuesday, 28 June 2016 21:12 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFiVIkMVagc
― nomar, Monday, 4 July 2016 03:35 (seven years ago) link
Still haven't seen Election -missed it when it was on Mubi, sorry- or anything else of his other than The Heroic Trio, which I really dig. Like the darker sequel too, Executioners, although he didn't seem to direct that, don't know if he had any other involvement.
― Tarzan v. BMI (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 4 July 2016 04:04 (seven years ago) link
watched life without principle last night (on hulu) - really enjoyed it
― 龜, Monday, 4 July 2016 12:05 (seven years ago) link
still great
― 龜, Saturday, 8 July 2017 03:31 (six years ago) link
is this the only Johnnie To thread? a few of his movies are on Canadian Netflix but it doesn't seem to be a great selection. I did watch Don't Go Breaking My Heart and found it handsomely shot but ruined by its utterly psychotic characters
― Simon H., Friday, 6 September 2019 19:59 (four years ago) link
revisiting drug war and it rules as much as I remembered
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 23:58 (two years ago) link
Watched Trivisa - a Milkway production, not directed by To but it could as well have been. Crazy plot twists, cynicism, quirk. Whole thing's a pretty explicit metaphor for the Handover, kind of a farewell letter to the vanishing Hong Kong film industry. Film's super explicit about corruption amongst the mainland authorities - basically one of the gangsters tries to go semi-legit and gets frustrated by the fact that Chinese officials are less dependable and more demanding than previous authorities, who also had to be bribed but only once while these guys just keep pushing it again and again. Film's from 2016, perhaps they couldn't get away with portraying something like that now. Or perhaps they could, I won't fake deep knowledge of the Chinese censorship system.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 09:58 (two years ago) link
It's on Shudder, for some weird reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2EuZ4bngqE
― MaresNest, Friday, 29 July 2022 17:51 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7UCUlcE0A0
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 17:29 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zksKhwBZljY
― MaresNest, Friday, 23 June 2023 18:14 (eleven months ago) link