Ong Bak I'll be sure to watch one day. It does sound very much like my sort of thing. Drunken Master 2 I hope to watch one day; last time I tried to track it down, there were only two DVD releases and both were sub-optimal - one was cut and had horrible PQ, and the other was dubbed and cut, IIRC - but that was ten years ago or more, may have to investigate again.
Your general starting point with Hong Kong films sounds similar to mine, though I think I jump from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan's Young Master, missing out the earlier Chan films where he was just an actor.
Johnnie To is an interesting director. He's a little bit like Steven Soderbergh, in that he mixes personal projects with films that are blatantly made to be popular and earn money. He also doesn't have much of a defining style across all his films, he keeps trying different things. And also, in my readings of his films, it appears he incorporates elements from Hollywood films - either as homage or as an attempt to do his own take on them, I'm not sure. Breaking News is clearly indebted to Touch of Evil, and Mad Detective isn't shy in borrowing one sequence from The Lady From Shanghai, to name but two examples.
Johnnie To films I would recommend, in order of release:
Heroic Trio and the Executioners; pair of action/sci-fi films starring Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Cheung as the eponymous trio. The plots don't make much sense, but there's plenty of visual spectacle. Former is goofy fun (for most part), latter is very bleak. These are early To, though. Running Out of Time. Andy Lau has four weeks to live, so he stages a series of crimes to draw the attention of Lau Ching-Wan. But the plot isn't that important, it's an excuse for having a fast-paced action film - that Lau is literally running out of time is what keeps things driving forward. PTU. This, I understand, actually took several years to film, as filming was restricted to the dead hours of the night at weekends. More of a character study than an action film, as a police officer loses his gun and then various police squads spend the rest of the night trying to get it back. Lots of lovely night-time cinematography of deserted Hong Kong. Running on Karma. I struggle to describe this one. Andy Lau in a muscle suit, as a Buddhist monk who sees the past lives of people. I love it, but it does get seriously weird, and is clearly one of To's personal films. Breaking News. Action film which explores how criminals and the police attempt to spin events through the media. Mad Detective. "A schizophrenic, former police inspector who comes out of retirement to help a rookie detective solve a complex murder case." Lau Ching-Wan, the Mad Detective in question, can see people's "inner personalities", but for some reason the version I watched had went with "ghosts" in the subtitles, which made the plot harder to follow.
In listing the above, I remember I forgot to mention Derek Yee; other than To, his are the films I've more or less kept up with. Lost in Time, One Nite in Mongkok, and Protege probably being the ones to highlight. All very good, but all also so very bleak.
I haven't seen Kung-Fu Hustle, actually. Which is a surprise, when you consider I have seen other Stephen Chow films; namely, Shaolin Soccer, King of Comedy, and God of Cookery, and enjoyed all three of them.
Your general starting point with Hong Kong films sounds similar to mine, though I think I jump from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan's Young Master, missing out the earlier Chan films where he was just an actor.
Johnnie To is an interesting director. He's a little bit like Steven Soderbergh, in that he mixes personal projects with films that are blatantly made to be popular and earn money. He also doesn't have much of a defining style across all his films, he keeps trying different things. And also, in my readings of his films, it appears he incorporates elements from Hollywood films - either as homage or as an attempt to do his own take on them, I'm not sure. Breaking News is clearly indebted to Touch of Evil, and Mad Detective isn't shy in borrowing one sequence from The Lady From Shanghai, to name but two examples.
Johnnie To films I would recommend, in order of release:
Heroic Trio and the Executioners; pair of action/sci-fi films starring Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Cheung as the eponymous trio. The plots don't make much sense, but there's plenty of visual spectacle. Former is goofy fun (for most part), latter is very bleak. These are early To, though.
Running Out of Time. Andy Lau has four weeks to live, so he stages a series of crimes to draw the attention of Lau Ching-Wan. But the plot isn't that important, it's an excuse for having a fast-paced action film - that Lau is literally running out of time is what keeps things driving forward.
PTU. This, I understand, actually took several years to film, as filming was restricted to the dead hours of the night at weekends. More of a character study than an action film, as a police officer loses his gun and then various police squads spend the rest of the night trying to get it back. Lots of lovely night-time cinematography of deserted Hong Kong.
Running on Karma. I struggle to describe this one. Andy Lau in a muscle suit, as a Buddhist monk who sees the past lives of people. I love it, but it does get seriously weird, and is clearly one of To's personal films.
Breaking News. Action film which explores how criminals and the police attempt to spin events through the media.
Mad Detective. "A schizophrenic, former police inspector who comes out of retirement to help a rookie detective solve a complex murder case." Lau Ching-Wan, the Mad Detective in question, can see people's "inner personalities", but for some reason the version I watched had went with "ghosts" in the subtitles, which made the plot harder to follow.
In listing the above, I remember I forgot to mention Derek Yee; other than To, his are the films I've more or less kept up with. Lost in Time, One Nite in Mongkok, and Protege probably being the ones to highlight. All very good, but all also so very bleak.
I haven't seen Kung-Fu Hustle, actually. Which is a surprise, when you consider I have seen other Stephen Chow films; namely, Shaolin Soccer, King of Comedy, and God of Cookery, and enjoyed all three of them.
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