I must admit, I’ve always known by word of mouth that Jonnie To is some kind of genius behind the camera, but I must confess that I have only seen one of his movies: Exile.  I know, I know…I should have seen all of his movies by now since I love HK cinema.

What I want to know is…where is the best place to start with To, or should I go ahead and order every movie he’s made?  Every time I see his name mentioned on Twitch he’s proclaimed as a God, and dammit I wanna experience the goodness!!

I;m not To expert but I;ve seen most of his late 1990s, 2000s film.

Start with THE MISSION or Breaking News, or PTU.

Then try the Election movies.

Not so sure how to advise on To’s earlier career.

i agree with Kurt, THE MISSION is a good start as any.

i would also suggest THE LONGEST NITE which is very essential Johnnie To viewing for its neo-noir stylings.

for long time fans, Exiled and the Election films, although good, pale by comparison to his earlier works.

so, try these:

WHERE A GOOD MAN GOES, A HERO NEVER DIES, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

it’s often disputed whether these films were directed by him, as he is only credited as producer, but it’s pretty clear from the style and look that he did. i’ve even seen interviews where he mentioned these films as “directed” by him.

I’d say watch ‘Election’ and ‘Election 2’ and ‘The Mission’ for sure - I think those are his classics.

Though they’re not perfect, I really enjoyed ‘PTU’, ‘Fulltime Killer’, ‘Running Out of Time’ and ‘Breaking News’ for action driven crime-fare.

Some people swear by ‘Throw Down’, his judo drama.

There’s a wealth of romance-driven drama too but I’m not so familiar with these yet.

There’s plenty that he’s produced that are well worth checking out, as has been said above. I’d definitely recommend you see ‘The Longest Nite’, and ‘Expect The Unexpected’ and the recent ‘Eye In The Sky’ are great too.

So in short, you can’t really go too far wrong in my opinion. Nothin I’ve seen of his has been a waste of time for me.

Bench: 

Well, after the opening moments of BREAKING NEWS, things have trouble living up to that opener!

I admit To almost shoots himself in the foot (so to speak) by starting with such a cracking opening, but I found enough in the rest to entertain me for the 90 mins.  It was a while ago I saw it though - I really should watch it again some time. Problem is, there are films I haven’t seen once yet - if I haven’t got time to watch them, it can be hard to justify a revisit.

Amen to that, Bench!

The biggest problem of my current life: finally I have the money to buy me all the toys I ever wanted, but I no longer have the time to play with them!
Videogames suffer the most from this, with books and movies a close second and third…

Long ago (well 5 years ago when my son was on his way), I had to jettison pop culture addictions in order to make way for ‘family life’

1st to go was aggressive hunting of good music.  Now I simply go by recommendations of friends I trust or have shared similar taste in the past.  (And Todd who intro-ed me to Sufjan Stevens many moons ago)

2nd was Videogames.  Cold Turkey baby.  Last game I played was the original Medal of Honor and Max Payne.  2003.  Haven’t looked back since.  Definitely no StarCraft or MMPORGS.

3rd (and by far most painful) was reading.  I used to read a book every 14 days or so.  For a while I dropped down to about 2-3 books a year.  Pleasantly this has gone up to about a book a month recently upon switching from driving the kiddies to daycare to (happily) back on public transit in the morning.

Movie Watching has stayed about the same, and a very understanding wife allows for 3 film festivals a year.  (2 with travel).

Yes, I’ve meandered away from Johnnie To.

And what do you get back for all that sacrifice?
Well, after nearly three months of VERY intensive babysitting, Ron suddenly starts to recognize my wife Elke, my son Chris (4) and me as “different from those other bipeds”. And from a sullen crybaby he transformed in a single day: he starts to smile when he sees us. If that’s not the damnedest thing I don’t know what is…

i have no wife and no kids. my music collecting suffered mainly because of financial budgeting. now i spend more on movies and DVDs (especially DVDs and now, a box set addiction, dammit).

i was so into jazz at one time that i passed literally every blindfold test my friends put to me. i could tell you whether it was Coltrane or Bird, Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery or Kenny Burrell, just by listening to half a bar.

quite simply, i’m running out of space for my books and DVDs. i know i spend two-plus thousand bucks on books each year. i’m afraid to keep a tab on DVDs.

how much do you guys spend on DVDs and movies?

Tough question, since I hit a lot of festivals, multiplex mainstream and also rep cinemas, i tend to not buy a lot these days.  I probably buy about 20 DVDs a year.  Usually Korean Limited Editions or other foreign stuff I can’t simply borrow or get from the local library.  Usually I’m so far behind in my watching and whatnot that buying more is just silly.  I don’t always realize this though!

I’ve been buying books again, and that has been satisfying to get back into reading an hour a day or so.

I love Fulltime Killer and the Election movies. You can’t go wrong with him though.