Philip Ng stars as Ma Yongzhen, who moves to Shanghai in hopes for a more prosperous life. He lives a peaceful life in the slums, but he later starts working at a nightclub owned by a powerful gangster named Long Qi (Andy On) who he later befriends. Despite his attempts to not get involved in the Triads, he eventually does. When the Japanese and an axe fraternity start killing off his friends, he decides to use his strength to get his revenge. Oh yeah, Sammo Hung’s in this movie too.
The action in this movie is also excellent. Though the editing is really fast at times, there are a lot of wide shots that allow you to see that the actors are invested in their fight scenes. You can still see all of the moves clearly and it uses a few camera techniques that typically aren't used during a fight scene. And the choreography by Yuen Woo Ping is top notch. The action alone is worth the price of admission. When someone gets hit in this movie, you can feel it. The falls in this movie look painful and the cinematography makes these fights look amazing. They’re intense, exciting, and stylish.
And some of the actors that you were hoping to see in this movie are barely in it. Master Tie played by Sammo Hung is a great character in the making, but he doesn’t do a whole lot in this movie. Besides a cool scene towards the beginning, he doesn’t really do much until about an hour in which is kinda disappointing. Also Yuen Cheung-Yan and Chen Kuan Tai (who played Ma Yongzhen in Boxer from Shantung about 42 years earlier) both have their time to shine, but, again, only at the end of the film. No one really stands out in this movie besides our two main leads which is good because much of the focus is on them and they work really well off each other.
*Believe or not, this is one of the few movies produced by Wong Jing where there are more shirtless men than shirtless women.
Images from HKMDb and HK Cinemagic