Very uninteresting cinematography -
- at least in a HK movie, i've seen. J.To could use some better DP, Peter Pau would be better.
Johnnie To is a realist director not a formalistic one. He doesn't rely on cinematography to make a good film unlike movies like Hero or House of Flying Daggers. He uses character and plot development to create film masterpieces.
share[deleted]
cinematography is photographing of motion pictures: the art or technique of photographing and lighting motion pictures
there is more to cinemataography than pretty colors(zhang yi mo)and odd camera angles with strange lighting(wan kar wai). To seemed to have used cinimatography to capture the meaning in this movie quite well. espescilly in the angles and positioning of everything in the soccer scene and the shoot out in the mall. the lighting mostly by muzzle flash in the night time out door scenes was a nice touch as well.
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I think the cinematography in this film is particularly brilliant. It's deliberately unflashy, doesn't draw attention to itself, but uses wide shots to give you a sense of place and of characters, individually and together, in their setting. The scene in the shopping mall is masterful -- the cool, indifferent surroundings are emphasised while the human mayhem is unleashed.
sharethat's a strange thing to say, because cinematography is one of the things I find most striking and impressive about his films.. it's just that the cinematography consists of a lot of beautifully framed longer shots rather than a lot of cool angles and colours, or quick editing and fast action, like a lot of other action films do.
Cinematography is important in any film, and it's his use of the camera that is necessary to give this impression of him as a 'realist' director, as you say. Cinematography isn't just something that's saved for movies by people like WKW or Zhang's wuxia films that you reference.
Where's my elephant?