Hong Kong's reigning king of crime cinema, Johnnie To, returns to the big screen in a producing role with the upcoming Trivisa. Frank Hui, Vicky Wong and Jevons Au direct the three part crime saga and after its selection to the Berlin International Film Festival and the release of an internationally minded trailer in the lead up to that there is now a first trailer for domestic audiences in Hong Kong. And while the footage continues to look absolutely fantastic this one is also notable for the obvious hoops one has to jump through to make a contemporary crime film in post-handover Hong Kong: i.e. you can pretty much only get away with it if you set it before China regained control of the island and blame all criminal activity on the lax supervision of the British.
Set in Hong Kong before its handover to China in 1997, the city's booming economy inadvertently attracts three infamous criminals from Mainland China to cross the border and make their fortune in Hong Kong. Trivisa is Sanskrit for "Three Poisons" - i.e. greed, hatred and bewilderment - which according to Buddhist teachings are the primary causes of all suffering. Each criminal is the epitome of one of these poisons, which in turn is the root of his utimate downfall.