Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film - Hardcover

Teo, Stephen

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9789622098398: Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9622098398 ISBN 13: 9789622098398

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press, 2007

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Director in Action examines the career of Johnnie To, whose art-house action hits include A Hero Never Dies, The Longest Nite, Running out of Time, The Mission, PTU, Breaking News, Election, and Election 2. The author discusses the symbiotic relationship between director and genre, why To is regarded as an auteur, and the influence he has on the trajectory of the action genre in the Hong Kong cinema. The author’s view is that To’s idiosyncratic auteurist style transforms the generic conventions under which he is compelled to work, and that there is a discernible element of experimentalism in his most outstanding films. In addition, To modulates the film noir form to suit his local contexts, characters and locations, to create a highly personalized noir cinema in post-1997 Hong Kong.

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From the Publisher:

"Johnnie To is one of the finest filmmakers working in the world today, and Stephen Teo situates his distinctive achievement within the wider context of Hong Kong politics, culture, and film production. Indepth analyses of To's films gain resonance from Teo's survey of the wider history of Hong Kong and its genre cinema. This, the first book-length study in English of To's work, is very likely to remain the best. It confirms Stephen Teo's stature as one of the foremost historians and critics of Chinese -language filmmaking." - David Bordwell, University of Wisconsin-Madison

From the Back Cover:

Film Studies / Asian Studies / Cultural Studies

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