Rating:

6

Year of release: 1990

Genre: triad drama

Director: Hoh Cheuk Wing

Action director: Stephen Tung

Producer: Chan Chi Ming

Writer: Nam Yin

Stars: Andy Lau, Yu Li, Roy Cheung, Tommy Wong, Jimmy Lung Fong, Joey Wong, Bao Fang, Jason Pai Piao, Lo Lieh

Rated II for violence and language

DVD Information

Company: Garry's Trading

Format: widescreen

Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin

Subtitles: Chinese, English

Extras: none

Notes: Nothing to get excited about extras-wise, but the actual movie is presented well, except for some badly-transalted subtitles.

Movie Review Index / Main Page

Hong Kong Godfather

Hong Kong Godfather is pretty much your standard Hong Kong cops-and-robbers movie, livened up a bit by some solid fight scenes and gunplay directed by Stephen Tung. In the movie, Andy Lau plays York, a young Triad who is pushed to the head of the infamous Hung Hing group after his father is framed for murder and his brother is assassinated. York must try to clear his father's name, while keeping his hot-headed brother (Tommy Wong) from going out for revenge, all the while keeping a determined cop (Roy Cheung, in a reversal from the type of role he usually plays in Triad pictures) from throwing him in the slammer for good.

There's not much of note to mention with Hong Kong Godfather. Andy Lau did tons of these types of movies in the early nineties, and there's not a whole hell of a lot to seperate this from the rest of the pack. There's double-crosses, triple-crosses, beatdowns with obscenly large knives, slow-motion shootouts and plenty of Andy trying to show some emotion (he was still in the wooden phase of his career at this point and wasn't exactly known for his versatile acting skills). Still, even though there's nothing all that great about Hong Kong Godfather, there's nothing all that bad either. If there's one thing Hong Kong film-makers can do well, it's the crime drama. But it's movies like this -- almost stunningly generic in every way -- that eventually soured local audiences and brought the "golden age" of Hong Kong movies to a screeching halt.