Johnnie To Kei–Fung′s PTU

Michael Ingham teaches at Lingnan University. He is the author of Hong Kong: A Cultural and Literary History (2007), and co-editor with Xu Xi of City Voices: Hong Kong Writing in English, 1945 to the Present (2003) and City Stage: Hong Kong Playwriting in English (2005).

Ingham has produced a well-written and clearly argued analysis of PTU that will be of interest to both undergraduates and advanced readers alike. He positions his monograph very firmly in terms of emerging critical work on Johnnie To as auteur as well as other industrial, social and cultural contexts. Above all, he develops a strong argument for the film's philosophical maturity, insisting upon its moral complexity and indeterminacy. Ingham makes a convincing case for PTU as a film that offers viewers space to think. -- Julian Stringer, University of Nottingham