well, after finally flogging the series to death with the fifth film in the series, andrew lau points his camera at some new faces in this prequel.

the film begins with the shots on the football field, from the original 'young and dangerous'; with a young nam (nicholas tse), chicken (sam lee), chou-pan (benjamin yuen) and pou-pan (yu ka-ho) having a run in with ugly kwan (francis ng). after being thrown out of school for performing an anti-school (although it may just have been because it was so bad?) song in a talent show, the friends decide to join with bee (frankie ng) and become triads with hung hing.

the four, along with big head (daniel wu), rise through the ranks of hung hing, which is, as usual, at war with those pesky ting sung triads. there's fighting aplenty, double-dealing and, between the air of homo-eroticism, nam finds time to woo big head's girlfriend, mei (shu qi, yet another of the people who play two different characters in this series).

well, despite the hate from some viewers, nicholas tse does a pretty good job as the young nam; not that ekin cheng is particularly old or leaves big shoes to fill. sam lee, on the other hand, has the much trickier job of becoming chicken; the character that jordan chan made the star of the series: i'm happy to say that he doesn't let anyone down. the ngs, francis and frankie, don't let you down and there's even a little cameo from sandra; whose 'young and dangerous' off-shoot, 'portland street blues', i look forward to watching.

not quite on par with the first three films, although it's much closer to them than 4 or 5 were.

good stuff...