Johnnie To has revealed that he has been working on a Hong Kong-set drama entitled Hope for the past three years exploring the current state of play in his home territory.

He also confirmed rumors that surfaced in late 2024 that he is planning to shoot a gangster movie in Japan’s mountainous Hokkaido region at the end of this year, but said it is contingent on his finishing the Hong Kong production.

Speaking to Deadline on the fringes of the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event, To suggested he was currently creatively blocked over how to finish the Hong Kong film.

‘I shot 10 days two months ago and then I stopped. I had no feeling about how to shoot, so I will wait,” he said.

The director said he was using his trademark method of shooting without a screenplay, and that it was too early to say precisely what the film is about.

“I have a very rough idea, but it’s not mature,” he said. “The first thing I have to settle [is] my feeling about Hong Kong. I’ve tried many times. Sometimes I want to go out [of] Hong Kong to think about the script but cannot function… I really want to finish it in the coming three months. If I want to finish, [that’s] easy, but I’m not really myself so that’s a big problem for me.”

“It’s a film about hope… if people have hope they have a lot of burden… I’m thinking about this. The story is Hong Kong, its people,” he said.

To – who is known worldwide for action and gangster pictures such as Breaking News, Election, Election 2, Exiled, Mad Detective and Drug War – continues to direct and produce under his Hong Kong-based production company Milkyway Image.

The once thriving Hong Kong movie industry that To helped create has floundered over the last decade – having initially boomed following the territory’s handover to China in 1997 – with the rise of the movie business on the Chinese mainland.

China’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists has also taken the shine off the territory, with some 500,000 people estimated to have left the city-state between 2021 and 2024.

“The value of life, value of everything changed. You have to try to learn how to except it. It’s why I cannot finish my movie,” he said.

“It’s not only about the censorship. I am talking about value, the value of your life, what you’re chasing, what is its value…. Maybe I’m not easy to fully censor. I can make a movie, any kind of movie, but you ask yourself why are you making this movie, that is always in my mind,” he said.

Asked on his advice for emerging Hong Kong filmmakers, To replied: “Shoot. If you have a chance to shoot, shoot whatever. Of course it’s difficult to find the finance. There are only two movies in production in Hong Kong this year [in the first quarter].”

To’s assistant who sat in on the interview said this compared with some 200 films shooting a year at the height of the Hong Kong film industry.

In the face of the challenges at home, To said he was planning to shoot in Japan, if he can finish Hope.

“If I can finish my movie, I will shoot at the end of this year, December, in Hokkaido, but I still can’t finish my movie… I have to wait but once it gets underway it will be very quick.”

He confirmed the Japan production was a gangster movie, but said it was too early to say whether his long-time collaborator Tony Leung Chiu-wai would be connected to the project.

“I don’t know. I would like to do it with him, he is my best friend, but I don’t know,” he said.

To added he was also in the early stages of development on a third movie project in Taiwan.

“I want to try to go out [of Hong Kong]. My feeling is I should be thinking about Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, or Malaysia, or Europe,” he said, adding with a laugh. “Not America, it’s too expensive.”

However, To said he would never leave his native Hong Kong for good.

“I don’t want to. I like Hong Kong. I’ve had many chances to go outside of Hong Kong to shoot but I know Hong Kong, I love Hong Kong so I want to try to make movies in Hong Kong even if sometimes I cannot,” he said.

“Life [outside of Hong Kong], to survive is easy but your culture, everything, it’s difficult to bring it with you, especially when you’re a filmmaker.”