The Mission
Johnnie To
Five men from different origins are hired as bodyguards for a Triad godfather who is under a death threat. Attempted murders and shoot-outs are the staple diet of this fleeting band. Friendship is born.
With : Francis Ng, Anthony Chow-Sun Wong, Jackie Lui, Roy Cheung, Suet Lam, Simon Yam
Screenplay : Nai-Hoi Yau
Image : Siu-Keung Cheng
Editing : Andy Chi-Wai Chan
Screenplay : Nai-Hoi Yau
Image : Siu-Keung Cheng
Editing : Andy Chi-Wai Chan
Production : Milky Way Image Company
Distribution: Océan Films
Distribution: Océan Films
Johnnie To is a great admirer of Melville, to such an extent that in his latest film, Vengeance, Johnny Hallyday revisits the character of Costello, the hero of Le Samouraï. The Hong Kong director has always said that he wanted to adapt Le Cercle rouge (The Red Circle). In the The Mission, already, the characters are depicted with the same darkness as Melville's heroes, which Johnnie To completes with his humour. "It is obviously impossible not to think of Jean-Pierre Melville, Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah when you see Johnnie To's films. But this comparison is not appropriate simply because they are the joyful updating of a tired genre, but also because with the conception of the staging and the choreography of bodies expressing it, the rhetoric becomes the content, the form the substance" (J-F Rauger).