Oddly enough then I've never gotten around to seeing "Gong woo lung foo dau" (aka "Flaming Brothers") before now in 2019. Even more so odd because I am very interested in Hong Kong movies.
I was given the chance to sit down and watch "Flaming Brothers", so I did do that, of course. And I knew that Chow-Yun Fat was in the movie, so that was definitely a selling point. Not that I would need any convincing to sit down and watch this 1987 Hong Kong movie.
So how was it? Well, first of all I must say that this wasn't a defining movie in the Hong Kong cinema, nor was it a particular impressive notch on Chow-Yun Fat's acting career. This movie was bland and mediocre. Writers Jeffrey Lau and Kar-Wai Wong were trying to mix a full fledged drama with the over-the-top gun action that permeated the Hong Kong cinema in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So was that a good mix? No, not really.
The movie was too long, and it had surprisingly little to its storyline to warrant the things that director Tung Cho 'Joe' Cheung set out to accomplish. I was left with a sensation of having somewhat wasted an hour and forty minutes on this movie. Sure, it was watchable, but it was also sort of disappointingly generic and mediocre.
While I have a big love for Hong Kong cinema, "Flaming Brothers" is hardly a movie that I will sit down and watch again. The mixture of drama, lovestory and hard-boiled action here just didn't make for a very potent concoction.
And the ending of the movie. Wow, seriously? That was just ludicrous. Definitely a massive anti-climatic way of ending the movie and providing a slap with a cold, dead fish to the audience that sat through the movie in the process.
My rating of "Flaming Brothers" lands on a very mediocre five out of ten stars. The movie is watchable and semi-enjoyable, but hardly an outstanding movie in any way.