The focus switches back to Chicken in this installment. A leader in the rival Ting Sung society (Cheung) kills one of the Hung Hing boys, which sets up a power struggle between Chicken and Cheung's protégé Barbarian for control of a key district. Ho Nam, after having numerous loved ones snuffed in the past three movies, tries to talk Chicken out of taking a leadership role, but Chicken thinks it's his time and ignores him. You probably know what happens next -- lots of double-crosses, tested loyalties and beatdowns galore. Will Chicken become triumphant and become a boss of his own?

The series starts to show its age in this installment. I guess cranking out four movies in little more than a year had its toll on both cast and crew. There's nothing really special here; most of the leads seem to be on auto-pilot all the way through. Even the great Anthony Wong (in a role that amount to little more than a cameo) doesn't seem to care, forgoing even the hair and makeup used in the previous installments to differentiate his character. The romantic subplots, which were treated well in the other movies, are painfully laughable here, especially the one between Cheng and Reis. Their love scene is so atrociously bad that I was actually groaning in disbelief.

The film isn't all bad -- Cheung is quite good as the villain and Chan turns in another good performance, though not quite up to the level of parts 2 or 3. Overall, Y&D4 is a by-the-numbers crime film that you might call "stunningly average"; fans of the series will definitely enjoy this one more than the casual viewer.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]