Opinion / Why didn’t Johnnie To ever get an Oscar nod? Bruce Lee and Wong Kar-wai put Hong Kong cinema on the map, but the Election director made the city’s best post-handover movies

Apr 21 , 2021

Film director and producer Johnnie To arguably never received the international recognition he deserved . Photo: SCMP

Hong Kong cinema has influenced Hollywood movies like The Matrix, Quentin Tarantino’s films, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and Godzilla vs. Kong

Wong Kar-wai has produced few films, Ann Hui’s hit was followed by flops, and Alan Mak was a one hit wonder – but Johnnie To has consistently directed greats

From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan, Hong Kong cinema has influenced the world. The revolutionary action scenes of The Matrix wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of John Woo or the know-how of kung fu choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. Quentin Tarantino lifted ideas wholesale from Ringo Lam, Martin Scorsese remade Infernal Affairs as The Departed, while Wong Kar-wai influenced a generation of Oscar winners like Sofia Coppola and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. And would the epic showdown in the recently released Godzilla vs. Kong be set in Hong Kong if local films hadn’t helped popularise the cityscape itself?

Of course, the influence of Hong Kong cinema has been waning for some time now. It was galling to see Korean movie Parasite become the first foreign-language film to win best picture at the Oscars when Hong Kong’s most creative films were historically ignored when it came to awards seasons – In the Mood for Love, for instance, has had more lasting impact than the 2000 Oscar winner for best picture winner, American Beauty.

Johnnie To’s PTU, starring Raymond Wong Ho-yin, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Maggie Shiu Mei-kei and Kenneth Cheung Moon-yuen. Photo: handout

In the recent dark years (if not decades) of Hong Kong cinema, if there is one filmmaker who has been more unfairly ignored than any other, it is Johnnie To, who turns 66 on April 22. True, in certain critical circles To is well known and highly regarded – you don’t get to be an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters without someone appreciating your work. Still, critical admiration can only carry a director so far; just because Satyajit Ray is acclaimed as one of the greatest-ever filmmakers doesn’t mean your average film fan has seen any of the Indian auter’s works.

This is the sort of unfortunate situation To finds himself in, despite almost single-handedly carrying the Hong Kong film industry on his shoulders since 1997. At times it has felt like he was the only one able to consistently produce high quality films – most other local filmmakers have been either wildly inconsistent in their quality (Ann Hui delivering a gem like A Simple Life only to follow it up with duds like The Golden Era and Our Time Will Come) or quantity (Wong Kar-wai barely managing to make three feature films in 20 years) of output.

All of this makes To the greatest Hong Kong director international audiences have probably never heard of. Although To would only truly find his stride in 1996 after founding his own production company, Milkyway Image, alongside creative partner Wai Ka-fai, he was still director of a number of hit Hong Kong films before then too. Classics like All About Ah-Long, The Royal Scoundrel and The Heroic Trio are all indebted to To as director.

Chow Yun-fat and Ng Man-tat in the Johnnie To-directed All About Ah-Long. Photo: handout

Despite these and other successes, To was not among that cadre of filmmakers globally popular enough or sufficiently revered to make the jump to Hollywood in the years surrounding the handover. Fellow directors John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam might have secured trips to Tinseltown, but not To. (Given that the only good Hollywood film produced by those three Hong Kong legends was Woo’s Face/Off, To might consider being overlooked in the early 90s as a blessing in disguise.)