The sixth “official” entry in the Young and Dangerous saga is also one of the more interesting. Since 1996, producer/writer Manfred Wong has wracked up a half-dozen chapters detailing the exploits of young punks Chan Ho-nam (Ekin Cheng), Chicken (Jordan Chan Siu-chun) and their circle of friends and foes. There have also been another four peripheral installments, most recently a prequel, Those Were the Days (released in April 2000). Though they are open to charges of glamorizing the triads, and will never win awards for cinematic technique, the ten Young and Dangerous pictures represent the most sustained series to emerge in Hong Kong cinema since the industry spiraled into a depression in the mid-1990s.

Originally based on Cow Man’s popular comic book characters, the denizens of Young and Dangerous have progressively become more complex, mature, and less glamorous. Born to Be the King is more a political than an action tale. There are still a number of rumbles, but the focus is the double-dealing and back stabbing (both literal and figurative) that take place during a Taiwanese leadership struggle.

There is a bold edge to the script, written by Wong and Candy Lo. The time frame is startling, opening on March 18 of this year—the date of the Taiwanese presidential election. The picture reaches its climax two months later, during the inauguration of Chen Shui-pian. Though the movie refrains from taking sides, the mere fact that it chooses the year’s most controversial political event as its background gives Born to Be the King an immediacy lacking in recent Cantonese films.

Against this backdrop, Ho-nan and Chicken test their survival skills against the yuppie son of Taiwan’s most powerful gang leader. Lui (Peter Ho Yun-tung) is a new kind of criminal, recently returned from America where he received a degree in management. Lui may not know how to use his fists, but proves more lethal than his “young and dangerous” adversaries. It is a change-of-pace role for singer Peter Ho, who effectively sheds his boy-next-door image.

The story is more complex than the usual triad picture. The Taiwan gang troubles extend to Japan and an aging leader (Sonny Chiba), his daughter Nanako, who marries Chicken, and a jealous gang member (Roy Cheung Yiu-yeung). There are also the emotional problems facing Ho-nan and his long-time girlfriend (Shu Qi), accentuated when a ringer to his deceased lover (Gigi Lai) shows up as a Taipei nursery school teacher. Director Andrew Lau Wai-keung does an admirable job in balancing and interweaving the various plot lines. Though all the ends are tied up into a too-neat package, Born to Be the King shows that the gangster genre is evolving for the better.

3 stars

This review is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.