Sparrow

It’s something that To shot over a few years, during breaks between better-known projects like Election and Exiled, and among its many oddball charms is the fact that it’s set in an underworld, with a cast of crooks and professional lowlifes, but features no guns; you might even say that it pushes the setting to extremes of artificiality, even by To’s already high standards. It’s fairy-tale-like in its simplicity.

Filled with lyrical passages of a bustling HK, it then explodes into symphonically complex heist sequences. Balloons float down affixed with a safe key, criminals engage in a thieving dance underneath a downpour, with the umbrellas used in twirling Busby Berkeley-esque patterns.