Young And Dangerous (1996)
An extremely popular manga series, Goo Wat Jai ( literally meaning “gangsters” in cantonese), is a film that made Ekin Cheng a mega-star, Jordan Chen a mega-star, and Andrew Lau, a prolific director/cinematographer.
The story is rather simple ( probably because it is very true and sticks to the original manga), young triad (mafia of Hong Kong, they own just about everything) guys Chan Ho Nam (played by Ekin Cheng), Chicken (Jordan Chan), PaoPi (Jerry Lamb), Evil (Michael Tse), and PaoPi’s brother (Jason Chu) are on their fast way to success. They are known for their brutality and notorious for getting their jobs done. Under the fatherly Brother B, they are surely going to be on the top of triad chain anytime soon. But things go downhill when Ugly Kwan (yes, his name is Ugly) plots to be against our righteous young triad members. Ho Nam accidentally sleeps with Chicken’s girl and PaoPi’s brother gets killed in a street brawl. Ugly Kwan even kills Brother B and takes over the gang (called Hung Hing). Now it’s time for Ho Nam and his brothers to join together once more to kick some serious butt and take what was taken away from them.
Sounds like a typical Asian gangster movie, and it really is. The direction is really a questionable one. This movie really do glorify the life of being a triad member, it is been told that after the movie, many young kids joined triads. I say to those kids, were you not paying attention? After the big street brawl, our main character Ho Nam is beat up so bad that he can’t even take piss on his own. Brother B’s whole family gets buried alive, now tell me kids is that what you want happening to you?
Other than those facts, this movie is really a satisfying one for this genre. Ekin Cheng, normally lets his hair do his acting, really showed something in this movie. Jordan Chan has always had presence but the real winner of this movie is Francis Ng, who plays Ugly Kwan. His overacting and sulky voice just steals the show away from the main characters.
So really whether this is a good movie or not is up to you. Sure the acting, direction, and plots were awkward sometimes, but when did being in a triad ever look so cool?
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