Out of the ten films that make up the Young & Dangerous (古惑仔) canon, Kant Leung's The Legendary Tai Fei (古惑仔激情篇之洪興大飛哥) is the worst by miles.
The film sees Tai Fei, now branch leader of North Point and recently married, learning he has an illegitimate teenage son by an ex-girlfriend. Said girlfriend is knocking on death's door, so seeks out Fei to watch over the boy. At is happens, the kid's recently fallen in with Tung Sing, Hung Hing's typically ogrey rival triads. I invite you to guess the rest.
At a merciful 80 minutes, The Legendary Tai Fei is the shortest Y&D film, yet thanks to the thinness of the plot, it still feels 45 minutes too long. It doesn't help that a good half-hour is given over to Fei's son and his pals arsing about on the streets of HK. These banal scenes include three teenage boys running naked round a bathhouse, and many close-ups of teen girls' cleavage. Friedberg & Seltzer would be proud.
Part of the fun of the other Y&D spin-offs were the cameos by major characters, like Francis Ng's turn in Portland Street Blues (古惑仔情 義篇之洪興十三妹). The best The Legendary Tai Fei can muster is writer/producer Lee Siu-Kei as the bumbling Brother Key, and Mr. Chiang's loyal lieutenant Yiu (Lee Diy-Yue), who is far and away the least developed of the franchise's recurring characters.
Despite having Anthony Wong in the title role, Lee Siu-Kei's shoddy screenplay had no input from series scribe Manfred Wong, giving poor old Anthony nothing to work with. Moreover, aside from Teresa Mak and the aforementioned cameos, the supporting cast is uniformly terrible.
Should anyone out there be planning a Young & Dangerous marathon, rest assured you'll be missing nothing of consequence by skipping this dreck. The only reference to events in later films is a twenty-second phone call in Those Were The Days (友情歲月之山雞故事).
The film sees Tai Fei, now branch leader of North Point and recently married, learning he has an illegitimate teenage son by an ex-girlfriend. Said girlfriend is knocking on death's door, so seeks out Fei to watch over the boy. At is happens, the kid's recently fallen in with Tung Sing, Hung Hing's typically ogrey rival triads. I invite you to guess the rest.
At a merciful 80 minutes, The Legendary Tai Fei is the shortest Y&D film, yet thanks to the thinness of the plot, it still feels 45 minutes too long. It doesn't help that a good half-hour is given over to Fei's son and his pals arsing about on the streets of HK. These banal scenes include three teenage boys running naked round a bathhouse, and many close-ups of teen girls' cleavage. Friedberg & Seltzer would be proud.
Part of the fun of the other Y&D spin-offs were the cameos by major characters, like Francis Ng's turn in Portland Street Blues (古惑仔情 義篇之洪興十三妹). The best The Legendary Tai Fei can muster is writer/producer Lee Siu-Kei as the bumbling Brother Key, and Mr. Chiang's loyal lieutenant Yiu (Lee Diy-Yue), who is far and away the least developed of the franchise's recurring characters.
Despite having Anthony Wong in the title role, Lee Siu-Kei's shoddy screenplay had no input from series scribe Manfred Wong, giving poor old Anthony nothing to work with. Moreover, aside from Teresa Mak and the aforementioned cameos, the supporting cast is uniformly terrible.
Should anyone out there be planning a Young & Dangerous marathon, rest assured you'll be missing nothing of consequence by skipping this dreck. The only reference to events in later films is a twenty-second phone call in Those Were The Days (友情歲月之山雞故事).
