Despite having some star power behind it, with Andy Lau as a star and executive producer, as well as having a solid crew, such as veteran Chin Kar-Lok handling the action direction, Brothers ends up just being your standard Triad picture.

Miu Kiu-Wai plays Yiu, who's a pretty nice guy as far as hardened gangsters go, which probably explains why the nasty Brother 9 (Henry Fong Ping) wants to take his arm of the "family" out.

Making matters worse is Lau (Andy Lau), a hard-boiled cop that's determined to bring down the local Triads. After Yiu's father is killed, his brother Shun (Eason Chan) comes home to Hong Kong from America and wants to help with the family "business". Will this lead to prosperity or defeat?

I'm sure most of you harderned Triad movie veterans out there know the answer to that burning question, and Brothers doesn't do anything to dispel that notion of deja vu during its' running time. This is by-the-book stuff all the way.

To their "credit", the film-makers seem to make a half-hearted attempt to change things up. But it mostly ends up being minor snigglets, like using Cantorock tunes versus the usual Cantopop ballads during the "emotional" bits.

There does seem to be a place for these kinds of movies in the Hong Kong movie industry, since they provide reliable entertainment for the viewer and a steady stream of income for the film-makers. But, really, how many times can one dine on the same diet before they bring it all back up in disgust?

And can somebody please tell Eason Chan to invest in some shampoo and a comb? Seriously. I'm sure they have Super Cuts in Hong Kong, and there's really no reason a star of a movie (much less one that's supposed to be a gangster) can't invest a few bucks and actually try and look the part.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]