Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 01/16/2006 Two brothers end up on opposite sides of the law, leading to inevitable conflict... but blood is thicker than water. A contrived and over-melodramatic attempt to cash in on the runaway success of A BETTER TOMORROW suffers from a weak script and badly edited action scenes, leaving little other reason to watch it unless you just have to watch every Andy Lau film.

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 09/17/2005 After the runaway success of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, there was a plethora of imitators who tried to capitalize on the movie's success. This film is pretty typical of that lot. There's really nothing original about it -- the film's plot is even much the same as ABT, with two brothers on opposite sides of the law (Lau and Cheung, with Andy being the bad guy this time out) drawn together by a dying father (Tung). Like in ABT, there's even a subplot about a innocent girlfriend (Siu) who wants a music career. This movie even rips off scenes from other movies as well; there's one sequence almost totally swiped from DePalma's Scarface. If you're a big Andy Lau groupie, you may want to check this movie out, since he does seem to have a problem keeping his shirt on and supplies a syrupy ballad at the end of the film. Otherwise, there's quite a few other films in this genre that are much better than this one. [review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewed by: Eddie Coyle Date: 11/03/2002 Sure, on one hand you have another Andy Lau " A Hard Boiled Better Tomorrow". On the other hand you have a movie were the loyalty is intense, the violence is brutal and the action nearly constant. Also, Andy has a tough as nails girlfriend so we don't have to get involved with any homosexual context between the two main characters. Sit back and enjoy. Better than 95% of the product coming out of HK these days.

Reviewed by: STSH Date: 06/09/2000 Summary: Half crap, half not bad Like many HK films, the first half of this film is awful. Confused, rambling, at times silly, with just a little relief. But the second half is quite good. Andy Lau plays the type of role he's done many times - the tough guy does nasty work but is basically on the side of the good guys, and he gives his all, as usual. But, also as usual, it's hard to feel much for his character. Unusually, he gets to do discreet nude/sex scenes with a young actress. Lau's character, though the tarnished hero, is a loser in every sense, and he suffers much from bad luck. But the best acting is a real surprise. This is the first movie I've seen Bill Tung where he's not playing a jokey role. Bill plays the physically (and morally) corrupted senior cop beautifully. His performance is compelling, and he steals every scene in which he appears. There are quite a few twists and turns in the plot, which takes off quite well in the second half, although the ending is never really in doubt. Overall, passable Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 A tough, violent look inside today's Hong Kong underworld,Sworn Brothers is the dramatic, tragic story of two men brought up closer than most brothers. Now they find they stand on different sides of the law. Lau has just returned to his job with the Royal Hong Kong Police after a period of special training with Scotland Yard, while Cheung is a fast-rising 'enforcer' in the underworld. In the end, justice (if not the law) prevails along with the idea that, while blood may be thicker than water, real friendship might prevail over genealogy. [Reviewed by Rim Films Catalog]