david (louis koo), becknam (edmond so), chun (sam lee) and ha (ronald wong) are four friends, who have grown up together and now eke out an existence in a small garage. ann (kristy yeung), becknam's sister who david has a soft spot for, begins working as a nightclub hostess, where a senior triad boss, shing (alex fong), takes a shine to her. when david and the boys don't take kindly to shing's advances, no matter how genuine and gentlemanly they may be, his men beat them severely. so severely that chen is left paralysed in a vegetative state and eager for revenge.

however, when becknam's gambling debts catch up with him, the group find themselves turning to shing for help. after coming through a close scrape with ko (simon loui), one of shing's top men, whilst sorting out the debts, david finds himself entering and rising the ranks of shing's gang. still, despite his success, revenge looms in david's mind...

'the rules of the game' is yet another example of a film where louis koo performs with great effect: the fact that he looks like a catalogue model, who can appear like a chinese version of ken (as in 'ken and barbie'), always seems to make the fact that he can act more potent. something i'm sure that i've mentioned many times in the past. here, koo convincingly transforms from a decent, stand-up, guy to a relatively psychotic shell of a man, driven by his hatred and desire for revenge.

alongside koo, the rest of the cast are also worthy of mention. edmond so and sam lee do good work, despite the latter being vegetative for the majority of the film. alex fong is also solid; playing the gentleman triad with just the right mixture of suave, good natured, charmer and methodical, ruthless, boss. kristy yeung performs well as the foil for the two male leads, but does more just flit between the two. simon loui, frankie ng, berg ng and chan chi-fai also crop up, in roles of various sizes, injecting some nicely manic triad members, who provide a contrast to david et al.

alongside the cast, steve cheng allows the narrative to move along rather nicely, twisting and turning more glamorous 'young and dangerous' style of rising through the ranks, into an altogether darker and tragedy filled spectacle. it is, by no means a great film, but it is an interesting, very watchable film, with a good cast.

good stuff...