EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED CONTEMPORARY URBAN CINEMA FROM HONG KONG'S MILKYWAY IMAGE PRODUCTIONS September 15-17, 2000 at the Anthology Film Archives, New York

RUNNING OUT OF TIME (1999) Director: Johnnie To Starring: Lau Ching-wan, Andy Lau, Yoyo Mung, Hui Shiu-hung, Waise Lee, Ruby Wong 93 minutes, color, 35mm in Cantonese with English subtitles Showtimes: Sunday, Sept 17 at 7:30pm From the innovative minds at Milkyway Image comes RUNNING OUT OF TIME, an anthem to urban loneliness, job dissatisfaction, and unconsummated romance. By 1999, Milkyway had reached a crossroads. Its dark and challenging films had drawn a commited audience, critical acclaim, and a shelf full of awards, but it hadn't had the kind of populist, mainstream, box office blockbuster that it needed. With Patrick Yau and Wai Ka-fai both working in TV again the burden was on Johnnie To to hit one out of the park. With RUNNING OUT OF TIME, he did. Cantopop king and international mega-star, Andy Lau, plays a terminally ill criminal who sets in motion a complicated chain of carefully-planned events involving a diamond worth $32 million dollars, a cold-blooded, bald-headed Waise Lee, and the Hong Kong police department. Up against him is hangdog, Lau Ching-wan, an ex-hostage negotiator who's been demoted to supply sergeant. He spends his days ordering light bulbs, keeping new uniforms in stock, and occasionally doing some hostage negotiation when everyone else calls in sick. Both men are terminally ill - Andy with whatever makes him spurt blood like a fountain, and Lau Ching -wan with his dead-end job and empty life slowly eating him away from within - and contact between the two men becomes a revitalizing drug. Lau Ching-wan stops wasting his life, challenged for the first time in years, and Andy finds someone who may just be lonelier than himself. Into the middle of their happy conflict comes Yoyo Mung (EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED) who is taken hostage by Andy (in a swooningly romantic scene) and - doing what any of us would do if taken hostage by Andy - immediately falls in love with him. Framed up against the hard edges and sharp corners of Hong Kong, cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung bathes Johnnie To's meticulously crafted set pieces with a diamond cold, arctic light, and Raymond Wong (impersonating Danny Elfman on steroids) unleashes a hot-blooded, rousing score full of wailing bagpipes, chanting choirs and heroic melodies. The movie is not only a lighter remake of Milkyway's earlier THE LONGEST NITE, but To's worthy homage to Alfred Hitchcock. Swerving vertiginously from jokes to action to chase to tragedy to high drama it throws MacGuffin after MacGuffin at the audience's heads all without missing a beat or ruining the fun. A brilliantly cinematic collision between the proverbial immovable object, and the unstoppable force - Hong Kong's greatest actor, Lau Ching-wan, and its greatest star, Andy Lau - it's part tightly-executed cat n'mouse thriller, part boy's own adventure story, and part ode to urban alienation. RUNNING OUT OF TIME is nothing less than a feel-good movie for the terminally ill. Watch the Hong Kong film critics pull their hair out over RUNNING OUT OF TIME and then read some more reviews about this film.

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