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Breaking News , 3 April 2008
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Breaking News
on DVD (2006)
Starring: Kelly Chen, Nick Cheung
Director: Johnny To
Certificate: 
As much as Johnny To might be 'claimed' by arthouse critics as a formal genius (his exacting mise-en-scene bringing sighs to the lips of the likes of Fred Camper, John Rosenbaum and, umm, Britains own film 'critic' Johnathan Ross) it should be said that it is really through his endeavours towards the mainstream that he comes into his own.
Witness the beauty of the 'Breaking News' opener; the film-within-a-film beginning doesn't linger on, he leaves the audience to see the irony and move on without forcefeeding us postmodernist smugness. Equally his actors (who he he seems to have a natural affinity for - many of them turning up again and again in his films) are excellently played. In part this is to do with the way To twists the genre. A hostage situation that is broken up with everyone sitting down for a meal, police included, seems original (although it seems to be a mainstay in To's films). So too does the tricksy manuevering of the criminals in response to the police's actions.
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