Yau doh lung fu bong

I just watched the version that's dubbed in Mandarin, and found the film to be a disappointment after hearing so much high praise about it. So I would advise everyone to try the original HK version or better subbed version instead. Hopefully you would have a better experience.

I enjoyed the last two films I saw by the same director (PTU and Breaking News, both subbed), but I found this particular one to be incoherent and the characters hard to relate to. The film hardly makes me sympathize with its main characters, and without that connection, their life and action holds no interest to me, and all the cinematic sequences director employs become only distracting gimmicks (ie the dialog/bathroom scene involve 3 leading characters in the night club, the chasing sequence with female lead, money, a shoe...) The performance by all the actors are great, but the story presents those characters in a way that I don't see enough explanation to how they got to the situation they are in and why they chose to take certain action over other. The pace of the film is all wrong for me, some of the cuts seems to be placed at all the wrong places, On the plus side, the film is beautifully shot. Hopefully all the problem I have with this film is due to bad dubbing, which is entirely possible. But I have no intention to find out after already wasting over an hour of my time.

Akira Kurosawa's first film was a martial arts film: Sanshiro Sugata. This is almost never seen in the west; and I confess I haven't seen it. But I know what Akira Kurosawa did in film, and I have more than a general sense of his style and his concerns - what makes a Kurosawa film identifiably Kurosawa.

Johnnie To's tribute to Akira Kurosawa comes as a very splendid surprise. Not really a martial - arts film, this is the story of champion judo wrestler who, going blind, wallows in drink, gambling, petty theft and jazz (do these all go together?) Anyway, although the final 20 minutes of the film gets a little heavy, for the most part this is a humorous look at some Hong Kong low-lives, and how their redemption comes through the personal discipline necessary to learn judo. Even if you don't like judo, you will enjoy this film - very professionally crafted and acted.

First impression... directorial tour de force, if (dont kill me for saying this) light on character development. I suspect Johnnie To did a minor miracle getting what was (or may have been) fairly thin stuff on the page via other writers to be far more (dare I say) poetic and lyrical (and even innocent) vibe than it would be in the hands of a Journeyman. This flows much more like a something Id actually expect to see in, I dont know, an animayed feature than live action, like from the fluidity of the tracking shots and movements of the camera as well as the slow motion.

It's the work of a dedicated Smuggler, bringing something deeper about how some of us out there - like the Gambling addict nightclub owner, more clear-eyed and pragmatic (would be) Nightclub singer, and ex Judo champion who may or may not find redemption as the plot summary says - are in an exiential rainstorm and its hard to run fast enough to find shelter or what to do. If I even tried to break down "story beats" it would sound silly, and rightfully so. Its an expressionistic experiment first, kick-ass action-crime thriller second.

Maybe a little too much sappy synth music for my taste to lift up the mood, maybe one or two flourishes that I didn't love (the guy singing mournfully during the nightclub fight, hmm gotta sleep on that). But this is often sumptuously directed, which is not what I was expecting, albeit I think my exposure to To has been the Election films and not a lot else (shame I can hear you crying), and I'd love to analyze the lighting and shots with a class or a film club or something. If it ever plays Alamo or the like, count me in.

And when I say To did a lot with the direction here, I also can tell he worked with the actors - Kwan and Ying but Ko especially in the kind of expressive/tortured masculine role Mickey Rourke could've crushed 20 years prior- and I felt depth from them in the style. If nothing else, it makes Judo fighting seem the most like a calling I've seen in any other film I can think of (even more than the directly cited Sanshiro Sugata by AK).

Raise my rating or lower it by tomorrow? Place your bets.

Director/writer Johnnie To throws down lots of HK movie clichés: The Heist, The Young Challenger, The Fighting, The Master, The Rival, The Gangsters, The Gambling. But all of it's entertaining nonsense used to set up his usual innovative scenes and a little drama.

Give Director To credit for parodying these clichés to a fault.

This movie is challenging. This is not easy to digest chop sockey flash bang action.

So what is this movie about? A lot: Rediscovering relations from happier times, rediscovering oneself, and a director having fun and dropping references to Kurosawa's "Sugata Sanshiro" (1943).

I have gone into this film very excited as I have become a Johnnie To fan only recently. After seeing both Election movies and PTU, I have been totally amazed at the quality of director he is and how good his films can be. Throw Down continues my fan-ship of Mr To in style. I have always felt that wires and stunt doubles ruin films, no matter what the genre, and this is something Mr To seems to share with me. The fighting style of Judo is perfect for the physical aspect of the film. The actors can get close and throw each other to the ground without need of propelling themselves over bamboo trees, which is great.

The three main leads, Sze-To, Tony and Mona are pretty good. Though Mona seems to aimlessly wonder through the film and really only serve as a third wheel at times, she is a nice enough support for the muscle of the film. Louise Koo is amazing as Sze-To, the former champ turned club owner. His drunken and dazed, followed by angered and determined emotions are all portrayed brilliantly. I was even surprised by Aaron Kwok, who is great as the eager Judo fighter, travelling from fight to fight, and spurring Sze-To into his renewed sense of fight.

The photography is spot on. The massive fight in the club is so perfectly filmed and cut with the Japanese vocal that it was a joy to watch. Even the simple scenes of clubs, night life, computer games room, restaurant, are all magnificently shot. And then, as if the film were not good enough already, the soundtrack, sound editing, production design (such as the Ext Judo Championship scene) and the screenplay are all as good as you could want. The first hour and ten minutes had me on the edge of my seat. The following twenty minutes had a more mysterious, what can happen now, feel, but it is all just perfect.

If you haven't seen a Johnny To film, this might be a good starting point, but be warned, he makes no excuses and feels no obligation to explain anything about anything, it's often left to the viewer to determine the why and the how. This, for me, is what film-making is all about.