Johnny To's Vengeance trailer

I definitely am pumped to see this one, I haven't yet seen a To film (I know, I know), but I recently picked up Election and Exiled so I'll be getting my introduction soon enough.

Looks super, like a Milkyway greatest hits collection featuring guest lead vocalist Johnny Hallyday. Luckily the HK DVD should hit a month or so after local theatrical release, so it'll definitely be in one of my future DDDHouse orders (hopefully along w/ Derek Yee's SHINJUKU INCIDENT) sometime before the end of summer.

Have Sparrow at home on the pile. You know I can't wait.

Start with THE MISSION.

The place I went to didn't have The Mission, go figure. I'll keep trying but these two look to good to postpone much longer.

The Mission is a bit of a bastard to get on DVD, you either have to go French or deal with the horrible HK DVD. It's well worth finding though. Exiled is a great, great, film, but I'd wait til you've got Election 2 before you start with Election. They kind of complete each other.

I'm exactly the same situation re: Sparrow Dre. I've had it on my DVD shelf for three weeks, but my multi region DVD player crapped out on me just as I was about to watch it. So looking forward to seeing it again.

Yeah, the picture quality on the currently available R0HK DVD of THE MISSION is pretty awful, but it's dirt cheap enough to warrant a blind buy ($5 at DDDHouse). Mei-Ah announced years ago that they were working on a remastered version, but according to a studio rep they couldn't find a good print source (huh?). If you can read French and own an All Region NTSC/PAL compatible player, I'd recommend the R2F disc. The R2 Japanese disc has been tempting me as well for years, but $50 is $50.

Wow, That looks incredible. Think I should start getting into To.

Taken goes to HK.

I read somewhere that Hallyday was the only cast member that received the complete script, and the other Milkyway regulars only got to view their pages. That's trust in your director.

Vast swaths of the Milkyway Image catalog are poorly represented on English-friendly DVD. It is a damn shame. One wishes there was a distributor out there who'd fix that, but there apparently isn't.

-BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA, a HK/Korean co-production that was the company's first film, seems to only be readily available on English dubbed DVD. There appear to be two different English dubs for this film, one with authentic-sounding accents, and one sounding flat like a bad anime dub. I sure would love to know where the embarassingly bad trailer (with the nice transfer and Cantonese soundtrack) linked to above came from... and if that release is possibly uncut and English subtitled.

-1997's TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1 was distributed by Golden Harvest and wound up being purchased by Warner Bros. when GH sold them the remains of their once-vast library, the bulk of which had already been sold to NewsCorp's STAR TV in 1993. It has remained buried in the WB vault since 1999. There was a 1997 DVD predating that library sale which sucked (though not as much as the DVDs of the Film City-distributed titles, see below) and is long out of print.

-Universe Laser's Hong Kong DVDs of the Film City-released THE LONGEST NITE, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, and A HERO NEVER DIES are all horrendous looking and sounding (A HERO NEVER DIES looks the worst by far, while LONGEST NITE'S dialogue and effects are out of sync independently of one another), and are all out of print (but you might still find them around). A real shame, particularly considering how gorgeous the cinematography in these films is.

-Mei Ah's Milkyway discs cover a spectrum ranging from utter shit (both versions of THE MISSION) to merely bad (WHERE A GOOD MAN GOES) to not-good-but-fairly-watchable (SPACKED OUT, THE ODD ONE DIES) to legitimately acceptable (PTU, RUNNING ON KARMA).

-FULLTIME KILLER, probably the most widely distributed Milkyway film for some reason, has a bunch of lackluster DVDs that are not really up to par.

From 2001-02 on out, the Milkyway films are pretty well cared for on DVD/Blu-Ray, but those 1996-2002 films deserve better treatment and soon, while the original film elements might (or might not, this being Hong Kong we're talking about) still be in recoverable condition somewhere.

I don't want to live in a world where A HERO NEVER DIES is a "lost film".

I have the P&S Korean VHS of BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA (released under the curious local title UNFIX), w/ original audio intact. Since there's probably little to 0 chance of a proper future DVD release, I'm holding on to that sucker.

I gave away my HK disc of FULLTIME KILLER when I bought the R1 (which isn't the greatest either, but at least it's anamorphic). I was seriously eyeing the R2J version, which is reasonably priced as Japanese releases go and even has a few additional extras thanks to local boy Takashi Sorimachi being the co-lead, but then I remind myself I didn't even really enjoy the movie all that much.

And I gotta say, the remastered disc of RUNNING OUT OF TIME really impressed the shit out of me. The rooftop scenes reminded me of INFERNAL AFFAIRS, almost.

But yeah, THE ODD ONE DIES, THE LONGEST NITE, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED and A HERO NEVER DIES have been all sitting on my shelf right behind THE MISSION waiting patiently for their Version 1.1 replacements. Waiting like Hachiko for a dead owner who'll never return.

This looks sweet, never heard of Johnny To, sounds like an American name, which one should I start with, whats his best film?

A lot of recommendations have been made, I'd just say read the whole thread...