The youthful hoodlums of Young and Dangerous are at in again for the eighth time since their 1996 debut, and it’s definitely a case of diminishing returns. Manfred Wong, the producer/scriptwriter behind the series, has already racked up five Young and Dangerous movies and another two semi-sequels which highlight subsidiary characters (Portland Street Blues) or provide background information (Young and Dangerous: The Prequel). Those Were the Days falls into the latter camp, focussing on the gang member named Chicken (played by Jordan Chan Siu-chun) and showing us just what he was up to in his formative years and how it helped mold what he is today. It’s a strictly “by the numbers” sketch, revealing less insight than marketing savvy.

Directed by Yip Wai-man, who also helmed Portland Street Blues, the picture is a competent if uninspiring series of flashbacks detailing Chicken’s bonds to Gigi (Gigi Leung Wing-kay), the true love of his life. There is the by-now cliched rendering of the housing estates, where living conditions are so cramped and ugly they cannot help but breed rascals and ruffians such as Chicken and chums Pao Pei (which literally means “foreskin”, played by Jerry Lam Hiu-fung), Cho Pei (Jason Chu Wing-tong), and Tai Tin Yi (Michael Tse Tin-wah). However, beauty sometimes emerges from this environment, as evidenced by the presence of Gigi. The movie is related by Gigi’s younger brother Wing-ho (Li Wing-ho), who is now a 19-year-old busboy at a Macao casino. It is there that he comes across his sister’s one-time fiancé Chicken, and recounts what happened in the years following the family’s move from Macao to the Hong Kong housing estate years earlier.

The trials and tribulations of the Gigi-Chicken relationship are full of drama but little insight or logic. An interesting twist has Gigi entering the Miss Hong Kong pageant in 1992, only to be hounded by the tabloid press when her past as a nightclub hostess comes to light. Inexplicably, her flashy engagement to triad member Chicken is totally ignored by the same paparazzi. The scriptwriter is able to turn Gigi’s notoriety on and off like a light switch when it suits his dramatic sensibility, to the detriment of the movie’s credibility.

The movie has some unexpectedly touching instances, particularly between Chicken and a Taiwanese girl (Chen Boyu) with whom he has a two-month fling while hiding from the cops. The film’s most masterful shot takes place during a phone conversation Chicken places to Gigi after he thinks his new girlfriend has fallen asleep. The camera pulls back to reveal the Taiwanese girl, awake and listening, as she realizes the man she loves is in love with somebody else. The moment is understated and quietly effective in a way that most of the picture is not.

Gigi’s strong-willed and loving mother (a solid performance by Lily Lee) is also well delineated, and one understands why the daughter emerges from the housing estates with such a strong sense of values. Unfortunately, what unfolds in Those Were the Days does not jibe with these sterling portraits. The mother’s unwavering principles make her deathbed approval of Chicken as her daughter’s lifetime companion extremely implausible. Nor does it make sense that a well-grounded young lady like Gigi would eventually settle for the wife-battering gangster she marries (Shek Sau) or her multiple engagements to Chicken. Maybe it could happen, but the filmmakers do not make it seem likely.

What is remarkable about Those Were the Days is its up-to-the-moment quality, with references about everything from post-Handover Macau to last month’s tomdotcom. Cameos by such Young and Dangerous stalwarts as Sister Thirteen (Sandra Ng Kwun-yu), Chan Ho-nam (Ekin Cheng Yi-kin), May (Kristy Yeung Kung-yu), Hon Bun (Wan Yeung-ming), and others are extremely forced but fun. But it still isn’t enough to mask the fact that the series is running out of steam and that after eight installments in four years, the characters are no longer so young and the only danger is dwindling audiences.

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.