My quick rating - 7,6/10. I recently acquired a remastered edition of this classic flick out of Hong Kong that put Chow Yun-Fat on the map as the premiere action star of Asia. I doubt my rating will change much. This one is a bit more dramatic than his offerings that immediately followed and earned him his cult following, namely The Killer and the absolute masterpiece Hard Boiled. Basically anytime John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat teamed up, they made memorable flix that are still some of the best you can find. Later on, I assume most of you finally caught up with Chow Yun-Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Either way, this was the first flick I saw of his and if you do take a look, he has been in PLENTY especially around that time. In this film, a recently reformed gangster (Ti Lung)attempts to reconcile with his policeman brother (Leslie Cheung) but as per the norm, cutting ties with those gangs is never that easy. Yun-Fat plays a disabled assassin who teams up with them to protect them from the mob boss looking to remove them from the equation (Waise Lee). Without this and other works from John Woo there would not be any Matrix flix let alone the John Wick series which heavily borrows many aspects of his style and creativity behind the camera. The movie itself blends the dram of the family trying to make ammends with the action of the gangs relentless pursuit of Lung regardless of his rehabilitated ways. If you have seen his flix, the profound violence in the scenes is present and well choreographed. The signature dual gun shooting along with creative gun battles are included in his early development. Yun-Fat does steal the show as the friend who along with acceptance just wants to make things right for his friend but the acting throughout this is surprisingly well done. There isn't much more to say aside form must see for fans of action since I bet some of your favorites were all inspired from this flick.
It seems AppleTV is the only place to buy this one digitally, click the poster to grab the physical copy.
