A shot in the dark
The box office dream team of Johnnie To, Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng have reunited for Blind Detective, To's crazy spin on crime dramas, writes James Mottram
EVEN FOR THE CAREER of prolific filmmaker Johnnie To Kei-fung, these last few months have been busy. An exhausting city-by-city tour of the mainland to promote his gripping narcotics drama Drug War was followed by a whirlwind trip to the Cannes Film Festival to bang the drum for his latest offering, Blind Detective – a genre mash-up that blends everything from film noir to slapstick.
So it’s no wonder that, during the interview in the grounds of the Grand Hotel –with the 58-year-old Hong Kong auteur dressed in an orange puffer jacket and navy trousers – To’s body clock is playing havoc.
It’s mid-afternoon, the day after Blind Detective’s midnight premiere in Cannes.
“Because of the time difference, midnight is already very early in the morning for me.
So it’s not very easy for me right now,” he says. But he’s happy with how the film was received the night before.
For his sixth outing in Cannes, he seems content not to be in the competition this time. “I have no burden, no pressure. I never expected this film to be selected,” he says. “To me, a festival is an arts event, an exchange of ideas. My film is more entertainment and quite commercial. Of course, I’m very happy to be selected but at the same time I was quite surprised to see a commercial film selected. It’s quite unexpected.”
