Part two opens in the Johnnie To section, and Daniel (@dungeondive) makes the case for him as the Hong Kong Michael Mann: slow, understated crime dramas like PTU, Election and Running Out of Time rather than the double-pistol heroics of John Woo. Running on Karma, with Andy Lau in a prosthetic bodybuilder suit, gets flagged as the weirdest thing in the pile.
Then the Tsui Hark run, which is the heart of the episode. Daniel traces the director from the subversive Hong Kong New Wave through the 90s, pointing at the giant red flag that serves as villain in Zu Warriors and arguing that the edge vanished after the 1997 handover. Detective Dee is named the last good one. The Blade, a brutal loose remake of The One-Armed Swordsman, once sat in his all-time top five. Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is the film he calls genuinely dangerous. He even defends Knock Off, the Van Damme picture, as quietly subversive for setting a story about a king of bootlegs on the eve of the handover.
The stack then ranges wider: Eagle Shooting Heroes, made by the bored cast of Ashes of Time; a Criterion Hard Boiled bought at Tower Records; Sammo Hung’s Blade of Fury; and Tai Chi Master as the one 90s wuxia film to watch if you only watch one.
Daniel argues Tsui Hark lost his edge once he began making films for the mainland. Which director do you think changed most with their audience?