The film that turned Hong Kong cinema away from nunchucks and onto guns and cool trench coats, simultaneously launching the careers of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat, hasn't worn as well as The Killer or the more bombastic Hard Boiled, but it still packs a heck of a punch. The real surprise is that it's mostly an emotional one.
The ever-charismatic Chow Yun-fat steals the show as a match-chewing gangster (indeed so well-received was his performance that he was brought back for the sequel in a 'twin brother' capacity) but the focus is actually on the relationship between cop Leslie Cheung and his crime-world brother Ti Lung. All the Woo trademarks are here, but in a less evolved, embryonic, still highly enjoyable form, and the final shoot-out is supremely choreographed mayhem of the kind that Woo has seemingly forgotten to orchestrate in his recent, anodyne Hollywood output.