Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 12/08/2009 Producer, writer, and director Wong Jing mashes up Fight Club with a high school comedy and a dash of video game beat-em-ups in My School Mate, the Barbarian, a film that manages to be entertaining (albeit in a very brainless way) despite a lack of originality and more than a bit of laziness in the script department. Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: Jackal Date: 08/18/2007 Summary: Best Beautiful, fascinating, touching and romantic film with splendid combat scene. Tsang and Fung form the excellent actor's duo. The Final fight - best moment in film. Great saundtrack, splendid cinematography work, yuong actors. This is one of the best film 2001 Reviewer Score: 10

Reviewed by: dandan Date: 08/17/2007 Summary: or, is he a pop star? edward (stephen fung) is the over-achieving son of a wealthy business woman, apart from not seeing his mother very often, things are pretty good for the boy. that is, until a psycho ex-girlfriend gets him thrown out of his posh school, only weeks before his final exams. after a misunderstanding, edward ends up at tbs; a school with a less than good reputation, where standards a low and the number of fights is high. luckily for edward, he soon makes friends with 7-11 (ken chung), phoenix (joey yung) who has a huge crush on him and stone (nic tse). stone has a chequered past and was once the school's 'king of fights' but, after returning from a year away, he has given up violence. stone and edward strike up a deal; stone will teach edward to defend himself and edward will tutor stone, so he can pass his exams... this, if you couldn't guess, is a ridiculous film. needless to say, it is brought to us, by the king of stupid, otherwise known as wong jing. now, i've seen plenty of wong jing films and nearly all of them are just plain daft; still, whilst some of them are practically unwatchable, there's a fair few that are ludicrously entertaining, despite their many flaws. this is one such film. maybe it's the mixture of a standard fish-out-of-water high school movie, with an added injection of triads, martial arts and some really silly comedy but, somehow, it all comes together nicely. now, this film won't be for everyone, although i have read far more positive reviews than one would expect. the comedy in the film is pretty goofy, although there are a couple of very funny lines in between the 'looney tunes'-esque silliness. as for the action, well ching siu-tung is in charge, so there's some quality there, even if a few of the fights suffer from too many close-ups and quick cuts. the final fight, between nic tse and lee tat-chiu, is pretty good, even if stephen fung takes over and injects some 'arcade action', which may rub some people up the wrong way. samuel pang, who plays nic's main rival, also does some interesting work... as for the cast, stephen fung does a reasonable job, nic tse continues to be very likeable, yuk ka-ho has a lot of fun as the school's bully and then there's joey yung. joey yung seems to transform herself from being incredibly goofy, very silly, annoying or rather cute, as is required throughout the film; she will either bug the hell out of you or you'll find her kinda cute and quirky. i'd go with the latter... so, a reasonably daft premise, some hit and miss humour and action scenes that are good and bad in equal measure; why, oh, why did i enjoy this film so much? i don't even have the excuse of being delirious (through illness), which made me laugh out loud for the majority of 'tricky king'. enjoyable guff...

Reviewed by: Sasami Date: 05/11/2002 Summary: Mindless fun With nothing but a threadbare, predictable plot and one-dimensional characters, this movie still managed to be surprisingly enjoyable. Most of this is due to the fact that the movie didn't take itself seriously, and offered up some unexpected scenes of good-natured comedy. Plotline: Typical rich kid Edward (played by Stephen Fung) would rather have his busy mom's attention rather than material goods, but has to settle for video conferences with her instead. Kicked out of his prestigious school with not much time until exams, his mother's underlings goof up and send Edward to one of the worst schools in town. Edward amazingly manages to piss off certain schoolmates and bonds with others in the process of one day, and gets involved in the school's 'barbaric' methods of settling scores. Nic Tse plays the cool character he normally does (does his contract stipulate that all movies he does require scenes of his chest and waving hair?? I think we have another Ekin Cheng in the works here folks!), and helps Edward out by teaching him how to defend himself. Joey Yung plays the crazy squealing love interest, which was cute, but added nothing to the movie except slight comic relief. Blah blah blah... bonding... blah blah blah... and then Edward gets kidnapped, which leads to a dramatic? comic? rescue scene. The highlights of this movie were finitely the fight scenes. Skillfully choreographed, I enjoyed watching the ballet-like movements from these kids who in real life, are not martial artists. My only gripe are the fighting scenes on top of the school tables. Even after much scuffling, the tables miraculously re-gathered themselves over and over again into neat rows. Just slight incontinuity that I found aggravating. Luckily though, as I mentioned before, this movie redeemed itself by acknowleging its corniness, and making the most out of it. The actors all looked like they were having fun, and that translated well across the screen. Fun movie to watch on a Friday night, when you don't want anything heavy or thought-provoking.

Reviewed by: danton Date: 04/15/2002 Basically a teen movie starring young heartthrobs Stephen Fung and Nic Tse (do they ever do movies where they're not paired with each other?). The plot is a little on the unbelievable side, but then again, this is not meant to be realistic, it's a popcorn movie that let's the audience oogle the stars and offers some pretty entertaining fight scenes that were choreographed inventively by Ching Siu Tung. None of the leads have any martial arts training, but the action director still manages to make the scenes believable (until the final showdown, which ventures into video game territory). There's also a moral (something about friendship and about studying hard), and the obligatory teen romance involving the very cute Joey Yung, who once again does basically a Shu Qi imitation that borders the fine line between endearing and plain annoying. Enjoyable fluff.

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 04/07/2002 Summary: Very silly For some reason this movie never really appealed to me when it came out, so I hadn't really intended to pick it up. It was actually the discovery that Samuel Pang is in it that changed my mind, as I think he's a very interesting new face on the HK movie scene - although seeing Nic & Stephen's fight scenes in 2002 had already piqued my interest. To a degree, I think my initial judgment was correct - the movie wasn't really my cup of tea, but there were a few scenes that definitely made it worth viewing. And yes, most of these were fight scenes . The early action scenes didn't do much for me - far too much close up, speed up and cut up. That, coupled with a convoluted Wong Jing plot, didn't inspire me too much. And Joey Yung was annoying me too - I know that's the intention, and I do respect them for not just having her play a pretty wallflower standing behind her man. But she is too good at playing annoying! The movie bumbles along with more coherency than usual for Wong Jing, but with his usual lack of subtlety & depth. Nic and Stephen are both good here as usual, which is probably what makes the movie watchable. The comedy is sometimes laboured, but sometimes quite amusing too. Even still, it wasn't until the final reel that the movie really impressed me, where Ching Siu Tung's action direction takes over, and begins to show some signs of his former glory again. The fight between Nic & Samuel Pang is really nicely staged and filmed, and the climactic fight is pretty decent (and funny). Overall, not a bad movie, but 2002 is a much better vehicle for the duo's talents. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: mejones Date: 03/21/2002 Summary: Entertainint popcorn film! Smart rich kid Edward (Stephen) gets framed by his ex-girlfriend shortly before graduation (or the HK equivalent?) and by a fluke ends up in TBS, the lowest of the low! This school is so nasty, even the triads won't recruit there! All disputes are handled by fighting on top of a bunch of desks pushed together with the ceiling fans going! Kind of a modern version of the challenges from Fong Sai Yuk: whoevers foot touches the floor first loses. Edward survives by befriending Stone (Nic), the fighting champ from the previous year. Will Edward be able to learn fighting well enough to defeat opponent Big Mouth? Why did Stone leave school for a year and return having vowed never to fight again? Will Mantis (Sam Pang?), the current champ, be able to goad Stone into fighting with him? Will any of them graduate? Not earth shattering stuff, but watching the friendship between Edward and Stone develop is half the fun, not to mention Stone's training techniques. AND the fight scenes atop the desks! Those alone are worth the price of admission! Phenomenal!

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 03/14/2002 Summary: Pretty good i am suprised by this film. It was quite entertaining and quite funny, and from the beginning you know the action was going to be good after watching the first fight scene. The 2 main stars do there parts well but the good part is that the minor characters all have personalities. Because of this, you are interested in every character that appears in this movie. The downside to this movie, was the silly end fighting sequence. Sure it's not a movie to be taken seriously but the last fight scene just made the movie unbelieveable. If they continued the winning formula they had with the other fight scenes, it would of made the movie more realistic, but instead the last fight scene turned into a computer game!! Apart from that, this movie is a good way to spend your time!! 7.5/10

Reviewed by: zarrsadus Date: 10/25/2001 Summary: High school drama with teen idols. Rich kid Edward has lead a pampered life up until now, being at the top of his class. When his girlfriend frames him, he gets kicked out of school just before the HKCEE exams. In order to make sure her son graduates, Edward's powerful mother wants him to go to the DBS school. Miscommunication on the video phone makes Edward's caretakers think she said TBS, so they enroll him there instead. Upon arriving, the peaceful Edward gets a taste of how a fifth-tier school runs, and is challenged to a fight by one of the bullies, Big Mouth. After losing the fight, Edward gets helped by the former King of Duel, Stone (played by Nicholas Tse). Stone teaches Edward how to defend himself and Edward tutors Stone so that he too can pass the HKCEE exam. This movie was decent, and probably more so if you're a girl and want to see Nicholars Tse shirtless ^_^. My favorite scene was the last big brawl when Edward starts doing special moves from the video game Project Justice (Rival Schools 2), a little silly yeah, but it added a nice spice to the ending. 7 out of 10. Reviewer Score: 7