The triad is challenged by the wicked Mr. Kao, played by Yin Tse (Shaolin Soccer). Tse plays the bad guy so effortlessly, it's a pleasure to watch. Alan is sent to Macau to pick up weapons but soon finds it's a set-up by Kao. He proves himself by saving the arms dealer. They go out that night when both he & the arms dealer set their sights on the lounge singer (A Better Tomorrow's Emily Chu). When the dealer realizes Alan wants her, she's ordered by the dealer to show Alan a good time. But it seems that Alan sensed her discomfort, took pity on her and won't sleep with her. It's one of those 'they're bickering so much, they obviously like each other' scenes.

In the meantime, Chang (Fat) has met the little girl, Ka-Hsi, who helped him as a boy ( Pat Ha from On The Run Yuen Biao) she's now a teacher at the very same convent school. He knows she wouldn't approve of his background so he at first pretends he doesn't know her. But through a montage of very cute scenes of them going out and helping others; they fall in love. But she's going back to China and wants him to go with her; he doesn't know how to tell his brother of his plans to leave the triad.

But then Alan returns with the lounge singer at his side, they're planning to marry too. But when Chang tells him of his plans to go legit, Alan gets upset. He tells Chang if it were a choice between his brother or this woman, he'd choose his brother. He then throws the singer out! Chang packs and leaves with Ka-Hsi. Alan mope around a bit but then one of his men tells him the gossip is that he's in love with Chang! He gets back together with the singer after that. Then the plot thickens-Kao decides to cheat Alan out of the percentage he was promised for the weapons and when the other triad members follow Kao, Alan realizes he's at war. Kao threatens all that he loves so he decides to cut Chang & the singer out of his life. Chang and Ka-Hsi run a 7/11 type of place in the city and are warned to get out of town. Alan breaks it off with the singer but luckily for him, she doesn't listen and saves him when he's ambushed. Chang realizes he can't let his brother down and leaves Ka-Hsi to fight at his side.

The Flaming Brothers was a typical sort of mafia movie, though I'm not sure if calling them flaming wasn't adding to the vaguely homoerotic subtext thrown in. There were a couple of scenes where Alan was accused of being in love with Chang, first by one of his men, then by his girlfriend. I didn't really see it though- it was 2 men that grew up together, fought together and considered themselves brothers. Like I said before, Chow comes off as very sweet while Alan is cool and sauve. The performances by all were very good. I'd definitely recommend it.

The film starts out with two friends growing up in an orphanage who early on see the gangster lifestyle as a a way out of poverty. Flash-forward about twenty years, and now the grown men (played by Chow and Alan Tang) have become successful Triads in Macau. However, after refusing to run drugs for the local dai lo (Patrick Tse), they are challenged to go to Thailand to do a dangerous arms deal to prove their worth to the "family".

So far this is pretty standard HK gangster stuff, but it's at this point that Flaming Brothers almost totally switches gears and threatens to lose the viewer in the process. Tang -- for reasons that are never explained -- goes to Thailand by himself to complete the deal, while Chow stays in Macau to romance a girl he had a crush on as a kid. It's these romantic scenes that really killed the buzz for me. Beforehand, we were treated to lots of gratuitous violence and a smattering of sex. But the middle portion of the movie has Chow over-acting as he hams it up, even going so far as to appear in women's makeup during a musical number which has absolutely no reason to be in this film. After seeing Flaming Brothers, I now know why screenwriter Wong Kar-Wai doesn't use scripts for his own films, because he really didn't seem to have a solid grip on creating a coherent story arc at this point in his career (some would say that this is a skill he still hasn't developed, but that's a matter for a different review).

Thankfully, things pick up near the end, when Tang and Chow team up to finally take down Tse. The finale displays the gunplay HK action movie fans love dearly -- stuff where guys don't just take one or two bullets before they go down, they take one or two dozen. The ending is also satisfyingly downbeat, especially compared with more modern films, where suagry-sweet endings seem to be the order of the day. For all that is good with Flaming Brothers, I just simply cannot forgive the movie's shortcomings in the middle half-hour. This portion almost feels Godfrey Ho-esque, like Chow's footage was taken from a different movie and spliced in. It's a shame, really, because Flaming Brothers isn't a bad film -- it just felt like it could have been so much better.

Why Would I Like This Film? It adheres closely to the standard heroic bloodshed plotline, and is likely to satisfy fans of the genre. Chow Yun Fat is his usual dashing self in this film, though it's a bit odd having him play second fiddle to Alan....

Why Wouldn't I Like This Film? Despite the fact that Alan Tang wears a Mark Gor coat through most of the film, he just isn't up to Chow Yun Fat's standards in this flick. Since about a third of the film focuses on Alan's life, this is a problem. Also, I was mostly bored by the grotesque and vapid (respectively) romances of Alan and Ah Tien. And finally, if graphic violence offends you, FB is not the right choice -- the camera tends to linger excessively over the steaming bullet wounds.