| Rich And Famous, despite the being part 1 in a triad story that was followed up with Tragic Hero (aka Black Vengeance), it was the latter that was first unleashed upon audiences as it was thought to have more commercial potential (more action). Tragic Hero was successful, much thanks to the star power of Chow Yun-Fat and Andy Lau no doubt, but Rich And Famous managed to slide by, taking in over 21 million at the box office. It goes to show that audiences are willing to be put be subjected to mediocrity as long as there's stars involved...
Kwok (Lau), Yung (Alex Man) and Chui (Pauline Wong) are the trio of kids from a poor family that end up working for respected triad boss Chai (Chow Yun-Fat). With Yung being adopted into the family, he is naturally the one that goes astray, leading to betrayal and bloodshed along the way...
Manfred Wong and Stephen Siu's script is the epitome of ordinary and generic within the triad genre. Each and every role is a pure stock character and no attempts whatsoever are made to make old seem fresh. Director Taylor Wong doesn't seem to bothered either and hands over the duties to the actors. Can't say I blame them for acting left alone with no guidance. No star power in the world can in this case overcome the sheer dullness on display and while Chow Yun-Fat can look suave in his sleep, he looks thoroughly bored here. Remarkably sloppily directed at times, Rich And Famous offers up maybe a stunt or two of noteworthy nature towards the end. The other positive out of all this is a fairly likeable performance by none other than Alan Tam as Mak the stuttering coward who has to face his demons in the end reel as these things go. Also with Danny Lee (as yet another cliché character...the cop hellbent to nail the crime boss!), Carina Lau, Shing Fui On and Fan Mei Sheng... |
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