A movie containing Chow Yan Fat en Ti lung cannot go wrong and it doesn't. The chemistry between them is wonderful. You will laugh with them and cry with them. This movie is more about their friendship. For fans who expect a movie like "A Better Tomorrow", do not worry because the exploding finale makes the movie worth watching. Forget about the plot,their is none.But the interactions between Chow Yan Fat and Ti Lung compensate that. Also there is not much style except for the action scenes. They are done superbly. Very surprisingly there is also a lot of humor and romance ,which shows the talent of Chow yan Fat. This movie can be described as an average heroic bloodshed title.

The second to last film of Shaw director Sun Chung's career reunites him with his long time best actor Ti Lung. It's also Chung's only effort to work in the new style action cinema of late 1980's Hong Kong.

The film has many of the hallmarks of HK cinema of the late 1980's and early 1990's, frenetic action, over the top near hysterical acting, stunt men being throw over all sorts of hard objects, extreme pessimism with the system and a feeling that chaos and crime is just around the corner. Distrust of Mainland China is a repeated theme as the HK criminals smuggle in assassins from there. While the character of "Dick", played by Chow Yun Fat, behaves like a clown at times and many of the early scenes reflect that, the film is really about as downbeat as one can get. If the citizens of Hong Kong really felt that the system was as bad as portrayed here, it a wonder anyone stayed there before China took over.

As a film it certainly has the solid and stylish direction that Sun Chung put into all his work even with the lower budget he clearly had to work with here. The action scenes are generally well done, better than other films of the time, but the plot leaves a bit to be desired. A fascinating husband and wife assassination team is introduced at the beginning of the film only to be seen going back to China by train in the middle, never to return. Why bother introducing them at all if the heroes are never going to battle them?

Not bad if you like this genre, the actors are great, and the film isn't too long.

It's 1988 and 1997 is looming... and even if it is never mentioned, the retrocession to China is everywhere in this movie.

It takes advantage of a vehicle for Chow Yun Fat, the John Woo generation of let's remember the glory of yesteryears codes of honor and pride, and Ti Lung, the Shaw brothers generation of clear cut manicheism and black and white morals, to generate a troubled twilight movie full of pathos and nihilism.

Hong Kong is drowning, the cops resent being on the losing side of a failing law and order, ambitions within a disintegrating power structure overtake integrity, even the OG coming out of a long jail sentence and falling to the ground to kiss it, fails to taste at first that this is not the country he had left behind. Westerners are basically rude tourists and smugglers trying to squeeze a quick butt or make a quick buck, the mainland is the source for violent unprincipled low life, and the heroes do not finish in a blaze of glory but rather in a haze of destruction and, ultimately jail.

Make no mistake this is a testosterone driven, hyper violent, bloody and full of bullet choreography. Chow Yun Fat, Ti Lung and Norman Chu you get plenty of that. But their actions more than honor driven are born from despair and pain.

One other way Sun Chung tells us times are at an end is through the treatment of women characters; they have a consistency rather rare in this genre of movies. Torn between her loyalty to her ganster former lover and her attraction to the cop with attitude, Penny is driven by actual tenderness and libido, not the usual fodder for abuse role devoted to young women in HK gangster genre. The wife of the older policeman is a pivotal presence of stability and family values, not the devoted house scrubbing table serving wound dressing servant too often portrayed in such films. And the fact that they both end up victims to the madness of men is a message from Sun Chung as to the loss of modernity he fears for Hong-Kong.

Sung Chu was born in Taiwan, this is is penultimate movie, in the early 90es he retired from directing, this is not a mindless action and pathos offering, it's a message and a farewell.