Expect the Unexpected: Contemporary Urban Cinema from Milkyway Image Productions

(We took this retrospective to some other non-profits and they laughed us out of the room. No one wanted to see these movies, they told us. The conventional wisdom at the time was that Hong Kong cinema was dead, but we’d all been catching Milkyway movies at the Music Palace and thought they were some of the most exciting films in the world. Finally, the five of us said “what the hell?”, threw $1000 apiece into a pot, and held the first retrospective of Milkyway Image and Johnnie To outside of Hong Kong.)

September 15-17, 2000 at Anthology Film Archives

Subway Cinema is proud to present EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED: CONTEMPORARY URBAN CINEMA FROM HONG KONG’S MILKYWAY IMAGE PRODUCTIONS at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, at 2nd Street) in Manhattan. This retrospective features 7 representative films produced by Hong Kong’s most innovative studio, Milkyway Image, from 1997 to 2000. For EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED program and ticketing info, visit www.subwaycinema.com, or call Anthology Film Archives box office at (212) 505-5110.

Milkyway Image is the studio that deconstructed Hong Kong action movies and made beautiful entertainments out of the spare parts. Dark, stylish, and endlessly innovative, Milkyway was founded in 1996, turning out 12 movies in four years under the leadership of Johnnie To (THE HEROIC TRIO) and Wai Ka-fai (PEACE HOTEL). These movies sear themselves into your brain with their blistering visuals, go-for-broke nihilism, genre-busting narratives, and trance-inducing soundtracks.

Almost always starring the ever-impressive Lau Ching-Wan (named one of Variety’s “Ten Actors To Watch” in 1998) each movie features a fistful of career-making performances by Hong Kong’s best actors, and enough fashion sense and gun-toting cool to sink a battleship.

Films
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED (1998)
A HERO NEVER DIES (1998)
THE LONGEST NITE (1998)
THE MISSION (1999)
RUNNING OUT OF TIME (1999)
SPACKED OUT (2000)
TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO.1 (1997)

Links
An article we wrote at the time about Milkyway Image.
Return of the Dragons (Time Out New York, September 14-21, 2000)
Heroes Never Die (The Village Voice, September 12, 2000)
Interview: Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai (Senses of Cinema, December 2001)