Word: wais
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Wai's 1997 triad movie Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 has a devious structure that Alan Ayckbourn might envy: a layabout named Kau (Lau Ching-wan) is drawn into a heist scheme. Is it in China? Or in Taiwan? The two parts of this what-if scenario show the results, with some odd twists, as when the hoods laboriously seal their comrade's corpse behind a wall, then hear the sound of a beeper?it's the dead man's, which they need to get further instructions, and they buried it with him behind the wall. Wai visualized...
...Andy Lau his first Best Actor citation in the Hong Kong Film Awards. With The Mission, To was elevated to top status among Asian action auteurs. One of his first Milkyway films was called Expect the Unexpected, and To did. He created an unusual partnership with his old friend. Wai writes the scripts, usually with a freelancer, and he and To share director's credit?though To usually calls the shots...
...could keep grinding out meticulous, and well-nigh flawless, gangster movies; it's the genre closest to his heart. But To and Wai, who serves as writer, co-producer and co-director, don't care to be cult figures. They're in business. Movies cost money and in Hong Kong, beset by movie piracy, the brain drain and the overall artistic glums, only 5% of all films released last year earned a profit. Wai and To want to be in that 5%. So they'll make, as well as they can, anything they think the audience wants. What to artier...
...Heat, about a cop with projectile dysfunction (he can't fire his gun). To helmed sequels (Happy Ghost 3, Casino Raiders 2) and launched franchises (the Moment of Romance trilogy). Then three lucky things happened: he founded Milkyway to be in control of his films; he hooked up with Wai; and nearly all the big action directors left for the U.S. In this vacuum, To's cramped, gritty melodramas shone like chrome bullets...
...This was largely thanks to Wai, a pinwheel of compelling, eccentric movie ideas. In the '80s they had worked together at tvb, Hong Kong's highest-rated channel. (That's also where To meet his wife Paulina; they have been married for 23 years.) Wai made his directorial debut in 1995 with Peace Hotel, a Chow Yun-fat Eastern Western whose bold, dusky style seemed indebted equally to Woo, Sergio Leone and Wong Kar-wai...