Tense and quite gritty for an 80s HK crime movie and that's a great thing, that it's going away from John Woo and any of the wannabe productions that was to be followed during the boom. Plot and character development are very simple, economical and so is the mood which is maintained throughout and it stays where it should be instead of dramatizing events and letting the story go wild on stuff. Other good things includes the music that consists of trumpets and drums and plays to the effect of emphasizing the tone on the right spot and at the right moment (for example during intense dramatic events or during action scenes), the acting where there aren't times when either any of the main actors (Waise Lee, Philip Kwok, Paul Chu Kong and two others whose names I don't know) overdo their performances and affect them to the point of awkwardness, and the action that is very well executed and creative (for its time).

I've been reading and hearing lots of rumors of how things went during shooting of the movie, which is interesting. Johnnie To (who shot his first action/crime movie with this movie) and Andrew Kam apparently shot most of the stuff but later got fired and Tsui Hark (who was the producer) took over the set and finished the rest himself. It's funny, because I still see signatures (red lighting, steamy locations etc) here and there that Johnnie To would use in his later works. Whatever, who cares. Collaborative folks did great in the end, and that's what counts. But still, that's where the big flaw is; that several directors shot their stuff and in the process they didn't get along and the result became so messy and decisions gave a slight suffering result of unevenness. I'll give enough credit though because it's not an ordinary crime movie and it features a very imaginative storytelling.