squidget

So I've been on a Johnnie To kick recently, watching Throwdown, Vengeance and Accident and the last couple of weeks. I've always liked him as a director and I was curious what folks feel his best films are and maybe to get some recommendations on films of his I haven't seen yet.

My Favs are
Full Time Killer - I believe this was my first experience with Mr. To and I was completely blown away by it. I still watch it from time to time.

Running out of Time

Throwdown - I just watched this last night and I liked it a lot. The movie was very sweet - the Judo was just window dressing.

Breaking News

Election

Films of his I did not like
Running on Karma - the muscle suit was too much
PTU - I remember all the hoopla about how great this film was and I really disliked it. Afterwards I was left with a "thats it?" feeling.

zombeaner

Election 2 and Exiled are my favorites so far, I've only seen about 8 or 9 of 'em

rkndkn

Besides several which have been mentioned, The Mission is one of my favorites. Not sure it ever had a quality DVD release, as the one I own is not. Definitely worth seeing, though.

The Sparrow is a recent one that just didn't work for me -- too "whimsical" in tone for my taste.

zombeaner

I don't think The Mission has a decent DVD anywhere in the world as of right now.

slop101

I like most of his movies, but Exiled has to be my favorite.

Preterite

The Mission is my favorite, though Where a Good Man Goes is a close second. PTU, Throwdown and Expect the Unexpected also top the list for me.

A Hero Never Dies is probably the one film of his that left me absolutely cold.

But where is the love for Justice, My Foot! and Mad Monk?

CritterYawn

I started with Exiled, but it only went downhill from there. Yes, some interesting bits, still not my cup of tea.

Boba Fett

Yeah, the DVD quality makes it look like a mid-80s production, it's that shoddy.

squidget

I dont' think I've seen The Mission - and I see it's available in netflix. excellent.

mrhan

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/internation...ggestions.html

The Running Man

Please note that sadly all of the films released under Milkyway films (Johnnie To's company) have really poor English subtitles. They read well but are actually very inaccurate, dumbed down and many times even made up.

If one is looking for Johnnie To, then they should be non-HK editions since a good amount of his films have gotten much needed retranslations.

Tai Seng has put out some of his films with retranslations. They are Running Out Of Time 1 & 2,
Running on Karma and Throwdown

Sadly, their release of Sparrow was just an import of the Universe DVD and not a retranslation.

Also disappointing was MoC's release of Mad Detective. They announced it was going to be a retranslation of the film but instead ended up being the same sub-par subs as before only with British colloquialism added.

Also, Magnolia's release of Exiled is the edition to get if you need English subs. It has retranslated subtitles that are an enormous improvement over the crap English subs on all other editions. I don't think it has been released on Blu Ray has of yet though.

It really saddens me to see how bad the English subtitles are on Johnnie To's movies. Who ever To has working on the subs needs to be removed because they are doing his films no favors. I almost feel at times like a petition should be started just to get the message out to him.

cheese_dip

I really enjoyed Election too.

aheroneverdies

The French release is really good but not English friendly, check out my comparison aheroneverdies.blogspot.com/2011/02/johnnie-tos-mission-dvd-comparison.html

zombeaner

If it isn't English friendly its of no use to me.

aheroneverdies

Fair enough, but I was just pointing out that when a version is available that looks as good as the French one does, why has that master not been used elsewhere?

zombeaner

Because Fuck French people.