Johnnie To Kei-fung was born in Hong Kong on 22 April
1955. In 1972, he joined TVB and worked his way to
being a writer-director and producer. In 1980 he directed
his first feature, The Enigmatic Case. To has directed
more than 30 films since then.
In 1996, he founded production company Milkyway
Image, working closely with writer-director Wai Ka-fai and
releasing a string of acclaimed thrillers including A Hero
Never Dies (1998) and The Mission (1999). Since the
runaway success of Needing You, To has co-directed,
with Wai, a series of commercially successful films including
Help!!! (2000), Wu Yen (2001), Love On a Diet
(2001), Fulltime Killer (2001), Running Out of Time 2
(2001), Fat Choi Spirit (2002) and My Left Eye Sees
Ghosts (2002). The start of 2003 saw the release of
Chinese New Year box office winner Love For All Seasons
and the filming of Turn Left, Turn Right for US-based
Warner Brothers.
How did the PTU project begin and did you expect it to
take two years to make?
I wanted to film a movie about uniform police officers.
Hong Kong already has a lot of plain clothed CID police
movies, but stories of cops in uniforms are rarer. At first,
I wanted use the force’s PTU (Police Tactical Unit) team
to tell this police story. The main problem was that when
I started to shoot, I gradually found more and more
things I wanted to add. I wanted to give the people more
personal characteristsics. So the roles of Maggie Siu,
Lam Suet, Simon Yam and the old gangster acted by Lo
Hoi-pang grew. There were so many things I wanted to
add during filming, I started to find it difficult to control
myself.
Did you manage to pull-back?
Well, we would shoot and pause, shoot and pause. When
I had time to calm down and think, I remembered why I
had wanted to film this story in the first place. I wanted
to tell a story of uniformed cops and deliver a message
about how police have to walk a thin line between good
and evil. Their role is to uphold the law. But it is also
easy to cross to the other side and break the law. This is
the story I wanted to tell. The whole movie is saying that
if the cops go wrong, their fate becomes no different to
that of a thief.
Are you saying that police should bend the rules?
To fight crime, they have to bend the rules. If they did
everything strictly according to the law, in my opinion,
they would find it difficult to work. The police have to
protect each other. Sometimes they have to cover up to
avoid something happening and this is done for the good
of the group. I don’t want audiences to watch this movie
thinking that I intended to defend the police using violence
and brutality against people. Or to justify cops using
unreasonable methods to interrogate suspects. That’s
not what I wanted to say. I want audiences to focus on
the ways of the organisation. I don’t deeply discuss
whether a cop should or should not do unreasonable
things. I just say that this is their way of survival. They
have to protect each other together. That is their way of
functioning. In the movie, the team is against the people
who break the law but not against normal citizens. There
are no good citizens being subjected to injustice. I’m
actually telling a story about the difficult situation of the
police.
Audiences will note the clear visual style and high-contrast
lighting in PTU. What was the style you were trying to
achieve with this film?
The whole story happens at night. This is better for lighting
control, because in daytime you can hardly control
the lighting. I tried my best to make the things I want
people to see in the movie appear clearly. I want people
to concentrate on those things so the dark parts of the
movie black-out the things I don’t want to show.
The film is set in a single night but production stretched
over two years. What were the difficulties in filming and
location work over that much time?
Each time we shot at a location we’d finish in one or two
nights. For example, in June 2000 we were filming one
scene and we finished with that location. After six months
we had shot another scene at another location, and so
on. So the continuity problem didn’t come up.
The only problem may have been that some of the
actors changed their look. Maggie Siu got a little fatter,
but after one shoot she was able to lose the weight. But
I don’t care about the connection of the scenes. For
example, if the street looks right, continuity-wise. I don’t
care about that. The most important thing is the story.
The film has limited star power for a Hong Kong release.
Why did you choose this cast?
Every film must have a marketing strategy. But even so, I
like to choose the right actors for the characters, rather
than go for high-profile performers. I think directors
should always choose their ideal actors. This is very
important. I could have had Andy Lau as one of the characters,
and other popular actors as main characters.
But I considered PTU as a personal film. I really wanted
to choose my cast, the cast I thought fitted the characters
best. Even the investors had no right to decide what
actors I used.
Tim Youngs