| Let Scorsese or Coppola handle the gangster epics, not Poon Man-Kit as his tale of Crippled Ho's (Ray Lui) rise and fall in the triads is a boring time at the movies frankly. The filmmakers, or rather the dvd people, gets themselves into trouble early when the time transition captions do not come with English subtitles and we're left alone trying to place the happenings within an seemingly important era. That's why To Be Number One may have more impact in Hong Kong but drama-wise, Poon and crew fire on technical- and casting cannons rather than storytelling ones. With a sizable cast of established character-players, none generates any depth, weight or interest and when lead Ray Lui is completely overacting from the start, you know you're in for a bumpy ride. There are positives such as action director Tony Leung's handling the requisite triad brutality and Peter Pau's cinematography at least comes off as professional.
Again, going back to the fact that To Be Number One surely being more of a movie for Hong Kong, at the Hong Kong Film Awards the following year, it did received the very highest honor in the form of the Best Picture award. |
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