Johnnie To

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“Big” (Andy Lau of Infernal Affairs, wearing a gargantuan prosthetic muscle suit) is a competition weight lifter and part-time male stripper. One night while dancing at a strip club, Big responds to the frantic exhortations of a comely patron (Cecilia Cheung) and strips completely naked. Unfortunately for Big, she turns out to be Detective Li, and she promptly busts him for indecent exposure. Worse yet, a murder has just taken place in the office above the club, and when Big tries to escape his minor charge, he’s caught by the cops and questioned in connection with the murder. Read More »

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Blind Detective, the latest film from Johnnie To, could also be described as a movie about movies, specifically movie-making—not that you would know it from its set-up, however. As the title suggests, the film centers around the exploits of Chong (Andy Lau), a former detective forced into early retirement as a result of retinal damage that left him permanently blind. He’s approached by Ho (Sammi Cheng), a cop who displays brilliant physical prowess in combat situations but lacks Chong’s astonishing intuitive abilities, which she hopes to learn from him directly through hiring him to solve the case of a disappearance of a dear friend of hers back in 1997.Read More »

One of the most personal films by the prolific Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To is a thrilling love letter to both the cinema of Akira Kurosawa and the art and philosophy of judo. Amid the neon-drenched nightclubs and gambling dens of Hong Kong’s nocturnal underworld, the fates of three wandering souls—a former judo champion now barely scraping by as an alcoholic bar owner (Louis Koo), a young fighter (Aaron Kwok) intent on challenging him, and a singer (Cherrie Ying) chasing dreams of stardom—collide in an operatic explosion of human pain, ambition, perseverance, and redemption. Paying offbeat homage to Kurosawa’s debut feature, Sanshiro Sugata, To scrambles wild comedy, flights of lyrical surrealism, and rousing martial-arts action into what is ultimately a disarmingly touching ode to the healing power of friendship.Read More »

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When an obnoxious detective loses his gun to four young thugs, it’s up to the P.T.U. (Police Tactical Unit) and their iron-willed leader to recover the weapon and clean up the mess before daybreak.Read More »

Hong Kong action auteur Johnnie To indulges his silly side with this hilariously inventive sequel to his hit romantic comedy, two former lovers find themselves irresistibly drawn back together — despite the fact that each is engaged to someone else.

Nowadays the stellar universe of Chinese popular film is filled with romantic comedies full of sap, déjà vu, and worn-out clichés. But the proliferation of these poorly executed star vehicles doesn’t mean that the genre is tired out. In the hands of a master like Johnnie To, the rom-com has plenty of life yet. In Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, To’s sequel to his 2011 hit, he combines cinematic wit, brilliant dialogue, and inventive ideas, taking the genre into fresh new territory.Read More »

Plot / Synopsis
Hong Kong auteur and Festival favourite Johnnie To returns with Life Without Principle, a suspenseful drama starring Denise Ho, Lau Ching Wan and Richie Jen. The film takes a hard look at Hong Kong’s money-obsessed culture through three characters whose destinies collide one fateful day.

Teresa, a customer service manager at a bank, is under pressure to make her sales quota with a high-risk investment fund. Although she knows the sale is only for the bank’s benefit, she pitches it to some of her clients, including a shady loan shark and a clueless housewife.Read More »

In this “cops and robbers” film, a raid on a jewelry store staged by a band of amateur hold-up artists goes horribly wrong, leading to a shoot-out. The elite Organized Crime Bureau team, headed by Captain Ching King Gen, is poised to go into action at a moment’s notice. Working as a unit, they bring law and order to Hong Kong streets, where they must rely on their courage and skills to survive.Read More »

The all-female Heroic Trio are Tung (Wonder Woman), Chat (Thief Catcher), a mercenary, and Ching (Invisible Woman). Initially, they’re on opposing sides – the invisible Ching is kidnapping newborn male babies for her evil master, Tung is trying to solve the crime (rather more effectively than her policeman husband, who is unaware of her secret identity), and Chat, who was formerly employed by Ching’s evil master, is trying to sell her services and inside knowledge to the police. But all three have something in common buried deep in their past…Read More »

Follows the lives of firefighters as they deal with joys and hardships, both on the job and with their own personal lives.Read More »