Young and Dangerous 5 (1998)
Reviewed by: mrblue on 2005-09-27
Once again, Ho Nam's "empire" is threatened. This time it's by a young upstart also named Ho Nam (Mark Cheng). What could have been a potentially interesting plot is dropped in favor of something involving real estate fraud, which is later dropped in favor of some silly kickboxing tournament between the rival gangs. The creators of the film took a long time (at least in terms of the series) to make Y&D5, but apparently they forgot to write a decent script. The movie goes all over the map. Characters and entire plot lines come and go at a whim and there are huge holes in the film, such as where the hell is Chicken? Ho Nam cannot carry the movie on his own; most of the enjoyment out of the previous installments came from watching Ho Nam and Chicken's relationship and, I'm sorry, the relationship between Ho Nam and a ditzy girlfriend (Hsu) just doesn't cut it. Lee is absolutely wasted in his role as (what else) a cop, and, once again, Anthony Wong's role amounts to nothing more than a glorified cameo.

Definitely the worst of the series; even big fans of Y&D were put off by this rubbish. Watch if you're a completist only.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]