Johnnie To Kei-fung has spent the past 10 years making films about murderous mobsters, cold-blooded assassins and crooked cops. Election 2, his most critically acclaimed movie in recent years, revolves around a relentlessly bloody power struggle among local triad chieftains - with a mainland apparatchik playing a shady kingmaker amid the mayhem.
Having dabbled in topics long deemed taboo across the border, To, 54, is hardly a prime candidate for investors seeking a director to helm a project destined for wide circulation on the mainland.
When he and Wai Ka-fai, To's long-time collaborator and co-founder of the Milkyway Image production company, sat down last year and decided to take a proper shot at cracking the mainland market, To says: 'It was because we believe in our ability to bring our own style of filmmaking to audiences up there.'
Having spent more than three decades in show business, To is one of the canniest movers in Hong Kong's film industry - and he admits he won't be making his own brand of trigger-happy cops-and-robbers movies on the mainland soon.
That's why the pair's first proper mainland-Hong Kong co-production is Don't Go Breaking My Heart, a fluffy romantic comedy about a stock analyst's dilemma when she's pursued by two very different (and hunky) suitors.
'It's not exactly the kind of film that could best bring our skills to play - but if we were to do something else, like a police thriller, we would have to attend to a lot of potential problems with the censors,' To says.