Twitch-O-Meter: Anthony Wong is ready for his extreme close-up, Mr. deMille!

Posted by Ard Vijn at 5:15pm.

Posted in Twitch-O-Meter .

When I saw Johnnie To’s “Exiled”, it became one of my absolute favorites and I still consider it to be one of the best films of the last few years. It has style, a masterful use of sets and locations, with a gallery of memorable characters.

Amongst the cast one man stood out and totally bowled me over. He turned what could have been a one-note supporting role into a masterful charismatic performance, combining quiet dignity with a dry sense of humor.
I’m talking of course about Anthony Wong as the older hitman called Blaze.

Shortly after that I saw him as a deranged madman in one of his exploitation films and couldn’t fathom that I was looking at the same man. And then I noticed how prolific he was, constantly popping up in titles I had already seen years ago.

What an actor…

Which means that once again, I’m going to use a turn in the Twitch-O-Meter to do a gallery of 5 close-ups of one of my favorite thespians.
Guess which 5 movies they’re from. The “Exiled” pic on the top-left doesn’t count.
No competition, no prizes, just for fun, try to see how far you get without using IMDB.

And I’ll post the answers Friday (earlier if someone has all 5 of them right).
Good luck!

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Reader Comments

PizzaBastard 04/09/2008 @ 7:07pm

the 2nd is from “hard boiled” and the 3rd is from “bunman”? don’t know the rest. i, too, was blown away by “exiled”. it made me want to use just my handguns in all my shooter games.
cpa314 04/09/2008 @ 8:02pm

yeah, the 3rd one is definitely from the untold story(about the meat buns). Exiled was great - loved the first shootout in the old streets of Macau when Wong and Francis Ng come to find Nick Cheung.
Ard Vijn 04/10/2008 @ 12:08am

Haha! Finally I’ve posted one which has people stumped for more than, like, two minutes…

Answers will be revealed in 36 hours. Tick, tock, tick, tock…
orangedoe 04/10/2008 @ 1:11am

Well, the first one is from Ebola Syndrome. ("great" film! )
The second one is, as pizzabastard said, from Hard-Boiled.
The third one is from The Untold Story.
The fourth one should be from Jiang Wens The Sun Also Rises (imo one of the best films of 2007).
The last one is from Sylvia Changs Princess-d, isn’t it? One of his best roles, though it’s a rather small part.
Ard Vijn 04/10/2008 @ 1:22am

...is the RIGHT answer!

Well done orangedoe!
Truth be told I was tempted to use 5 stills from Ebola Syndrome because he has so many different ‘looks’ in that film. But when I had those shots from “The Sun Also Rises” and “Princess-D” I chose otherwise.

Wanted to include a shot from “Infernal Affairs” as well but when I opened the DVD-case my disc was gone. Meaning I lent it to some colleagues six months ago and still haven’t gotten it back. Oi!

I’m a bit puzzled that you all keep referring to the third as “The Untold Story” though…

When I see them on my “images” page the order is as follows:

1: The Ebola Syndrome
2: Hard-Boiled
3: The Sun Also Rises
4: The Untold Story
5: Princess-D

It’s pretty difficult to mix up 3 and 4, you’ll agree!

EDIT: Ah, I see, in “related images” (where it irritatingly shows 4 out of 5) it has the order mixed up…
Kurt Halfyard 04/10/2008 @ 5:14am

Gotta love Wong for his sheer diversity and plentiful out put. The man always brings quality to the table.
Simon Abrams 04/10/2008 @ 8:00am

I love “The Sun Also Rises” too, though the last story is the weakest link in the chain.
kenixfan 04/10/2008 @ 12:26pm

No photo from Mr. Cinema?

I thought The Sun Also Rises was a great film but am surprised that anyone would say the last story was the weakest. The last story—actually the first in terms of sequence of events—does lack as strong a plot as the Jaycee Chan segment BUT, visually, that last half-hour of the film is just amazing. Beautiful film that made me thankful I had recently purchased a big screen TV.

Wong is at his best in the 2nd segment.

And, of course, Exiled was a masterpiece. Check out The Mad Detective for even more To genius.