The Mission
27 October 2017, late afternoon
I got to see The Mission again, but this time on the big screen. TIFF is doing a Johnie To retrospective, and had a 35mm print of his film. Amazing. The Mission is a real classic of HK cinema. I think it’s one of his best works, and one of the best things to come out of Hong Kong. It’s such a quintessential Triad film. A group of guys need to protect their boss, whose being targeted by killers. As the film progresses they go from defending him to finding the killers to dealing with the aftermath of the whole affair. The film has a stellar cast: Simon Yam, Andy Chau, Suet Lam, Roy Cheug, and the one and only Francis Ng. (Serious: Francis Ng is such an amazing actor. I feel like he’s so underrated.) The Mission is probably most famous for it’s slow, methodical, shopping mall shoot out. The film oozes style. Watching it again I noticed how terrible the film’s score is. You can’t win them all. This film is great.