Author Topic: Johnnie To Marathon  (Read 7193 times)

sdedalus

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2011, 02:05:15 PM »
One of the funnest things about the movie apart from the pretty cinematography and the action sequences is the score. A lot of the score is very Morricone-like and epic and really helps to add some heft to the proceedings. But what's even more interesting is the way the score changes so much during the course of the film. It has moments where it feels like a score for a horror film with some discordant instruments and there's one moment where all of a sudden, it's the James Bond theme music! I realize that this makes it sound like the score is all over the place but somehow this mishmash of styles works perfectly well within the film.

That sounds like a lot of fun.  Hong Kong films were notorious for ripping off music from other film.  Morricone and Bond were particularly popular.  There's a Chang Cheh adaptation of The Water Margin that's got a very Morricone-ish score that's apparently based on Hang 'Em High.
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worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2011, 02:41:53 PM »

Happy Ghost III (Johnnie To, 1986)
I haven't watched the two previous films in this series. So I really don't know how this one compares or what the internal rules of this universe are. But none of that seemed to really hinder my enjoyment of this installment.

It's a really silly comedy with a pretty simple premise. Maggie Cheung plays a spunky ghost who wants to be reborn as a great singer. Presumably because she's Maggie Cheung and therefore absolutely adorable and irresistible, whoever is in charge of these things (Tsui Hark cameo!) wants nothing more than to grant her this wish. She comes down to earth to be born to a musician's wife but thanks to some silly shenanigans and missed connections, she is forced to wait for a few days before it's auspicious for her to be reborn again.

In the meantime, she finds out that a somewhat bumbling schoolteacher (Raymond Wong) was the one responsible for bungling up her reincarnation plans and so she proceeds to torment him using her ghostly powers. The schoolteacher in turn summons his own ancestor ghost who turns out to be no match for our Maggie.

More nonsensical stuff ensues which is punctuated by a random music video sequence with Maggie and Raymond Wong dancing on the streets in the rain!
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This is not all. There's also some problems with the triad thanks to Maggie possessing some random schoolgirl and a triad leader. Some other stuff related to the schoolteacher's girlfriend causes further complications.

The plot is really messy and silly and most of the jokes are of the "causing his pants to fall down" variety. Still, Maggie Cheung who doesn't seem to have really honed her acting skills at this point is really adorable and makes the whole thing rather charming. The rest of the cast is really likable as well and there's something really good-natured about the movie that made me like it. Still, I can't really recommend it unless you're in the mood for some really mindless entertainment.

sdedalus

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2011, 02:46:10 PM »
Maggie Cheung plays a spunky ghost.

Sold!
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worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2011, 06:38:00 AM »

Seven Years Itch (Johnnie To, 1987)

For the most part, I've really enjoyed these early films by To despite their cheesiness and contrived plots. Sadly, this one has almost nothing to recommend. It's really predictable in terms of the plot. Raymond Wong's character has been living with his girlfriend for seven years but still hasn't popped the question much to the disapproval of her mom. At this point, he's going through the proverbial seven-year itch which means he is confronted with temptation wherever he goes. From his PoV, the world is rife with young women in short clothes and low-cut blouses bending over for one reason or the other and causing him to lose his mind. He plans a work trip to Singapore presumably to get away from the girlfriend for a bit and ends up hooking up with another woman who is using him to smuggle (ridiculously fake-looking) jewelry.

Firstly, the movie trades in these really broad stereotypes. The men are either infidel jerks or completely controlled by their wives. The women are either shrews or overly submissive (or just smugglers). I wouldn't really mind any of this if the movie was actually funny or charming (as was the case with the two prior films). The jokes here fall really flat. Most of them are of the looking up women's skirts variety alternating with having to hide the other woman in a closet because the girlfriend arrives on the scene. All of this culminates in a really absurd and ridiculous (but not in a good way) ending. The worst offense of all is that the movie only has the adorable Maggie Cheung in one scene!

I think the only thing that kept me watching is Raymond Wong. He seems completely okay playing an absolutely despicable leading man and still somehow manages to be inexplicably likable. Even with that, I can't really recommend it or anything.

worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #24 on: June 12, 2011, 08:20:16 AM »

Eighth Happiness (Johnnie To, 1988)
Hmmm, my foray into the early Johnnie To romcoms isn't going very well. This one might even be the worst of the lot.
It sounds pretty good on paper actually. Chow Yun-Fat, Raymond Wong and Jackie Cheung play brothers and spend the entire movie in the pursuit of romance. They manage to make this doubly difficult by creating obstacles through their own foolishness and hijinks ensue.
Raymond Wong plays a TV personality with a cooking show with a James Bond-like intro. Chow Yun-Fat plays an aspiring actor / womanizer whose wooing strategy is to basically pretend to be gay (yeah, I didn't understand the specifics). Jackie Cheung just hangs around parks watching women exercise.

I always know what I'm getting into with these movies and find much mirth and amusement in their convoluted plots and other silliness. Plus, these actors are super charming and always seem to be giving it their all which is so endearing.

But this one just felt exhausting. The plot is just way too confusing and while I'm used to it with these movies, the terrible way the women are treated in this movie got to me after a while. Jackie Cheung WINS his girlfriend in a pingpong match while she stands by quietly. Chow Yun-Fat cheats on his adoring girlfriend AND makes her cry by insulting her but she comes running back to him. Raymond Wong is the only decent guy in the bunch and even his romantic interest gets abused (and physically hurt) by Chow Yun-Fat. It's all a bit much.

Still, there's fun to be found by way of Chow Yun-Fat's enthusiastic performance and the final climax with all 3 of our protagonists dressing up in drag and performing Chinese Opera.

The next one coming up for me is an action movie To directed with Tsui Hark. Excited!

worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #25 on: June 13, 2011, 05:15:27 PM »

The Big Heat (Johnnie To, Andrew Kam, Tsui Hark and possibly more, 1988)

So apparently this went from being a low budget genre film directed by To to a troubled production that took over two years and changed a lot of hands in terms of the director. (More info here in an interview with the scriptwriter)

Given that background, it's surprising how consistent the film feels and how much it feels like a prelude to the other To films I've watched from the 2000s. A cop who is about to retire early because of some nervous disorder affecting his hand (and therefore his ability to use a gun) finds out that his ex-partner who once saved his life has been brutally murdered. He changes his mind about retiring so he can investigate this one last case.

The rest of the film follows the cop and his team as the investigate the murder and try to piece together evidence to put away the rich businessman who is smuggling drugs into the country. There's also some weird stuff about the villain being gay that seems mostly unnecessary.

While the plot is just as convoluted here as it is in the romantic comedies that preceded it, what makes this movie so much fun to watch is the action sequences. Luckily, the film has TONS of that. It even begins with a close-up shot of an electric drill going through a man's palm and never lets up from there. It's set piece after set piece of really fun (but also extremely gory) action sequences. There's some really amazing stuntwork and at least a couple of occasions where it's hard to even tell how they even managed some of these scenes.


There's even a shootout sequence shot entirely in red and blue that looks more like something out of Suspiria than an 80s Hong Kong action flick.


The best part of the movie (which is also why it feels so much like a Johnnie To movie) is the camaraderie shared by the team of cops. The women are just afterthoughts in the film really and even Joey Wang (who is the only actor I recognized) has nothing to do in the film.

Fun!

sdedalus

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2011, 07:51:29 PM »

The Mission - Maybe Johnnie To's best movie, the first part of a thematic trilogy with the equally great Exiled and the pretty good Vengeance.  All three are about a group of hired killers who, for the sake of honor, find themselves at war with their boss.  There's a shoot out in an empty mall (which looks like the same mall as the one in the climax of Jackie Chan's Police Story) that's a perfect distillation of To's style: complex but comprehensible geography, Leone-like stillness, Woo-like cool.

Election - Simon Yam and the other Tony Leung compete to be the leader of the local gang.  This first of two films relates the present day organized crime gangs (triads) to their history as anti-Manchu insurrectionist groups.  The sequel demonstrates the ways in which Hong Kong's gangs are regulated and manipulated by both the local police and the mainland Chinese government.  To strips all the pomp out of The Godfather and mixes it into an action movie.

A Hero Never Dies - Tweaking a favorite John Woo trope, To pits two superhuman hitmen against each other and they find they have more in common than their bosses' rivalries should allow.  Woo plays it straight, with Catholic notions about the duality of man.  To nods to Weekend at Bernie's.
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worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #27 on: June 22, 2011, 08:03:53 PM »
I can't wait to get to The Mission. I am hoping to watch the new Johnnie-To+Wai Ka-Fai rom-com this weekend. Nods from To to Weekend at Bernie's sound amazingly fun!

worm@work

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #28 on: June 27, 2011, 08:00:27 AM »

All About Ah-Long (Johnnie To, 1989)

A pretty terrible (loose) remake of Kramer vs. Kramer. Feels closer to Bollywood actually. All the usual mistreatment of women that seems par for the course in these early films is present here as well. Plus, some really bad parenting. The film doesn't even get into it's central conflict for the first 60 minutes after which it rushes through the whole thing half-assedly. By that point, I was beyond caring about either the kid or his parents. Chow Yun-Fat who is usually so much fun to watch mostly just smiles beatifically the entire time and displays none of his usual awesomeness. Sylvia Chang is just meh. The kid is great though.
I really can't recommend it at all unless (like me) you can't resist the temptation to find out what magic To can bring to pure family drama. Not much, apparently :-\.

sdedalus

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Re: Johnnie To Marathon
« Reply #29 on: June 27, 2011, 12:56:55 PM »
I thank you, worm, for plowing through To's early days.  I've always had the impression that he didn't really come into his own as a great director until the mid to late 90s and you for the most part seem to be confirming that.

I suspect it had something to do with his forming his own production company (Milky Way, founded in 1996), along with many of his more famous peers moving to Hollywood in anticipation of the handover of Hong Kong to the PRC.  That left him as one of the few remaining good/experienced directors at a time when he had complete creative control over his projects.
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