Sometimes this blog runs the risk of becoming the Johnnie To newsletter, but the fact is that when you cover Hong Kong film you either cover Johnnie To or you don't cover Hong Kong film. If the guy got hit by a light bus while crossing the street the HKSAR film industry would instantly hit a major recession: no other Hong Kong director turns out movies so relentlessly and plays international film festival so regularly.

And on that note we segue to the news that Johnnie To's MAD DETECTIVE (actual title of THE DETECTIVE) has been accepted to the Venice Film Festival. Previously, the word was that it had been turned down but there was either a re-think over in Venice or the rumors on the street were nothing more than outright lies. Also, it looks like Tartan will be releasing the ELECTION DVD on  11/6 2007. TRIAD ELECTION (aka ELECTION 2) will be out on 9/11 2007. Interestingly, while TRIAD ELECTION is going with cover blurbs from Vincent Musetto at the New York Post and Manohla Dargis at Film Comment, ELECTION will get the big guns with a quote from Quentin Tarantino (you can see it here). Tarantino's name on a movie has helped (HERO, HOSTEL) and not seemed to make any difference at all (THE PROTECTOR, HOSTEL 2) so it'll be interesting to see whether ELECTION outsells TRIAD ELECTION or not.

Looking at the image for the TRIAD ELECTION DVD (see it bigger here ) Tartan believes that Americans really love guns. Leaving aside the title treatment on the poster and DVD cover above (does anyone actually use a gun in TRIAD ELECTION, let alone a hand grenade?) I love the little gun Photoshopped into Simon Yam's hand. 

(Thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who sent this in)