Revolution of Their Time: 30 Years of Milkyway Image
Programmed by: Yuzhou Chai
As Johnnie To remarked in a 2024 BBC News interview, it is the circumstances that create the style. Hong Kong cinema has never been just about a place — it has always been about a group of people and a moment in time. This notion has only grown more resonant in the decades since 1997, as the city’s film industry has grappled with shifting political and economic landscapes. Key talents either departed for Hollywood or merged northwards (in co-production with Mainland studios), and local films could no longer guarantee box office success. The era of Planet Hong Kong — as David Bordwell famously dubbed it — is gone. It is in clear decline if not done for. Founded in 1996, on the eve of Hong Kong’s handover, Milkyway Image has now spent 30 years adapting to this challenging environment, capturing the evolving reality, experimenting with genre filmmaking and crafting a singular cinematic language — one defined by existential hitmen, morally ambiguous cops, raw street-level violence yet choreographic fights, and a city caught in perpetual motion and its own fate. This retrospective revisits the films that have shaped Milkyway’s legacy — a tight-knit collective of a trusted crew, and a body of work that remains urgent, inventive, and deeply attuned to the anxieties of its time. Even if only a shooting star (watch for the studio logo), it was a perfect convergence of talent, opportunity, and creative autonomy.
Triangle (2007)
Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam Ling-Tung · 93m · 35mm
Co-directed by Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam, the set-up for Triangle is a little like the set-up for its crime: a plan that refuses to stay planned. A game of Russian roulette played by three desperate characters; a game of cadavre exquis played by three acclaimed filmmakers. A game for Hong Kong cinema-goers: can you tell who did which chapter?
Friday, January 9 7:00 PM
The Mission (1999)
Johnnie To · 84m · 35mm
Five killers hired to protect a triad boss from assassination — Curtis, James, Mike, Roy, and Shin — find their professionalism tested by the solidarity forming among them when the mission takes an unforeseen turn. Breaking from the legacy of Hong Kong action cinema, The Mission takes an unprecedented turn so striking that it triggers its own visual symphony — BANG! Here comes the Milkyway Image.
Friday, January 16 7:00 PM
Exiled (2006)
Johnnie To · 110m · 35mm
The mission continues for the killers, but not simply to continue The Mission. In the transitional power vacuum of Macau’s handover (two years after Hong Kong), the dust of the American Wild West blows into the colonial frontier. When the fantasy of escaping brushes against the reality of Exiled, everyone caught in the Milkyway standoff needs to flip for it — heads or tails? Or perhaps the choice was already made. Courtesy of Media Asia Film Distribution (HK) Limited.
Friday, January 23 7:00 PM
The Longest Nite (1998)
Patrick Yau · 81m · 35mm
Two rival triads in Macao are forced to unite after a string of violent clashes. Rumor spreads that Mr. K has paid to have Mr. Lung assassinated. A corrupt cop on Mr. K’s payroll tries to avert bloodshed but collides with a bald, enigmatic hitman drawn into the deadly hunt. In Milkyway’s neo-noir, tonight will be The Longest Nite for Macao — the twin and mirror of Hong Kong.
Friday, January 30 7:00 PM · Saturday, January 31 9:30 PM
My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002)
Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai · 97m · 35mm
A spoiled, widowed young woman suddenly discovers a supernatural gift after a near-death accident: her left eye sees ghosts, including the spirit of a former classmate who once adored her. If Milkyway Image thrives on action-crime-thriller-noirs, it survives through its genre-fluid-rom-coms. In this dual production strategy, many of those rom-coms vanish quickly from public memory — but this one lingers.
Friday, February 6 7:00 PM · Saturday, February 7 9:30 PM
Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 (1997)
Wai Ka-Fai · 90m · 35mm
An ambitious gangster glimpses a precarious path upward in a criminal underworld reshaped by Hong Kong’s collision with surrounding powers. Hailed as the formal debut of Milkyway Image, today it feels once again like a fateful crossroads — just as it was for the drifting hooligans on-screen three decades ago.
Friday, February 20 7:00 PM
Trivisa (2016)
Jevons Au Man-Kit, Frank Hui, Vicky Wong Wai-Kit · 96m · DCP
Borrowed time is always due. Inspired by true stories, or rather, by history, three notorious Hong Kong kingpins of the ’90s are gathered under the deadline of, guess what, 1997. A final hurrah takes shape in their minds, much like Triviṣa — greed, fury, and delusion. A retro-debut by three rookie directors marking Milkyway’s 20th anniversary, Trivisa is a farewell to the future, an entry into the endgame. Courtesy of Media Asia Film Distribution (HK) Limited.
Friday, February 27 7:00 PM
The Odd One Dies (1997)
Patrick Yau · 89m · 35mm
The action-crime track beats with a rom-com motif in this apocalyptic cha-cha of two contract killers falling in love as their world snaps, sways, and stamps. There are many reasons to believe that The Odd One Dies, amid Hong Kong’s fin de siècle upheavals, but the film believes in the opposite as well: one lives because another chooses not to. Milkyway’s existential thread, often tucked beneath its fatalism, is never truly absent.
