Reviewed by: dandan Date: 03/16/2006 Summary: woo's in front of the camera... raymond lee directs a pretty grim tale of to brothers, who flee persecution in china and try to make a life in hong kong. john woo, in a rare starring role, plays the elder brother, kwong, whilst vincent wang plays ming. kwong becomes a construction worker, whilst ming looks for quick cash; borrowing money and trying increasingly riskier schemes to strike it rich. more pressure is pilled on the brothers, as a large property owner, mr or (partick tse), tries to force them from their apartment. ming teams up with loanshark kuen, played by tommy wong (no, not the stoner...), and attempts to take on or at his own game. it's a pretty downbeat affair, heavy on the drama, but with little to make it more than ordinary. okay, but that's all...

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 Chen Hsiang Ming is a disillusioned private in the People'sLiberation Army. When he and his brother hear that their father has been driven to suicide by political pressures, they flee to Hong Kong. Life on the other side of the border though, turns out to be tougher than they expect. First their plans to become smugglers are thwarted by Marine Police. Then they run afoul of a Triad gang boss -- who wants to redevelop the apartment block they live in. Chen fights the law, knowing that the law will win. But if he is going to go down, he is determined that at least one of his oppressors will go down with him. [Reviewed by Rim Films Catalog]