Johnnie To, Ringo Lam, and Tsui Hark will debut their movie Triangle at Cannes. The fabled triumvirate of Hong Kong action film directors shared directing duties, each helming one 30 minute segment of the film. Hark starts, Lam takes over, and To anchors, all using the same cast and crew. Movies in which each director submits a separate short haven't impressed in the past, but this is a twist on the concept and I'm excited to screen the results.

David Bordwell, a great friend to Asian cinema, was invited to visit the set. He shares this interesting tidbit about HK films: almost all of them are shot MOS (without sound), speeding up productions and unleashing the visuals. Italian movies were shot this way into the 1960's though I've never heard much about the impact of that on their productions.

Bordwell's account of his set visit is well worth a read for fans of HK cinema and Johnnie To as Bordwell has lots of great pics and notes on To's filmmaking technique.

Johnnie To's trademark visual style is a camera that's always in motion, but rarely handheld. Bordwell snagged this choice quote from Shan Ding:

The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.

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