This is a total chick-flick movie. Really. Just about every male reviewer trashes this one for lack of martial arts content until the end, and the fact that Sammo doesn't do any fighting at all in it.
Deal with it.
I love this sweet little angtsy movie, where Jackie and Sammo play brothers. Jackie's the long-suffering one, who resents having given up so much of his life to taking care of his mentally-challenged brother (Sammo). He finally has a chance to realize his life-long dream of becoming a sailor, but when Sammo gets messed up with some nasty drug-dealing types, Jackie risks it all to save his brother's life.
You like slash and angsting heroes, you'll love this one, believe me. Okay, so Jackie and Sammo are brothers and I'm not into incest slash, but they're so sweet together, walking down the street hand-in-hand, and then so heartbraking when Sammo tries to kill himself when he thinks Jackie is abandoning him. They hug. Sammo cries. Jackie cries. Another guy comes in the room, sees the two brothers crying and breaks down in tears himself. It's that kind of a movie, okay?
Besides all of that, the final action sequence where Jackie and his friends from the police force go in to rescue Sammo is a show-stopper. Jackie's in full rampage mode, his fighting style more brutal and bloody than usual. Both Jackie and Sammo are good throughout, playing characters quite different from their normal roles and showing a bit more dramatic range than usual.
Check it out when you're in the mood for something different and see if you don't end up enjoying it.
SUMMARY:
Overall rating: A-
Droolworthiness: A for Jackie, lovely as usual. Though a point of demerit for showing more of Sammo than I think I really needed to see.
Slashiness: It would have been an A if they weren't brothers. But still it gets a B for the way Jackie's friends all bond together to help him and his brother out.
Action: A for the final scene, but this isn't a movie you watch if you're just looking for action.