A mixed up film that can't decide which characters to concentrate on. I think it finally makes the wrong choice. In the first scene someone kills a young child, four shots which seems overkill, but we never find out why and by whom – this scene is never referred to again in the film. A group of four men and a woman from the Mainland rob a jewelry store in Hong Kong and escape to Taiwan by motorboat. Once on the boat they all raise their arms in a big cheer and think about what they will do with the money. One thinks, I can go to college; the woman (Tu Kuei-hua) wants to help her siblings still in China. Not really bad people, just in need. Happy Days.


Meanwhile, Michiko Nishiwaki is a Hong Kong cop and comes to Taiwan to track down the gang. She is partnered with a Taiwan cop (Mark Cheng) and their boss is played by Wu Ma. They spend much of the film insulting one another and unlike an American film would, they never fall in love or sleep together. The gang sells the jewels to a triad boss and later realize that he ripped them off with a low-ball price. They are not pleased and come back with guns blazing. Fortunately, most of the triad gang are dressed in white and so easy to know who is being killed. The triad boss was not there but his number two man is – San-ko – who for whatever reason they portray as very gay. He ends up in the hospital and Michiko warns him not to kill himself with his own gun – a reference to his penis I expect.


The focus of the film though is not on Michiko, but on the gang of five. Their loyalty to one another, the melodrama when one of them has his wife run over and killed – we get a musical video montage of them running on the beach and having sex which at that point felt like necrophilia, one gang member tries to stop another from smoking too much, they make funny faces, go to an amusement park and kill a convenience store manager – all to this frigging romantic ballad. Weirdest thing ever. The problem in following this group is that even though their loyalty to one another is admirable they are not very pleasant to be around as one of them rapes two women and they kill people with little provocation.  So it's not like you are really rooting for these guys.


There are little spurts of Michiko in action but most of it is this gang rubbing out people they don’t like. A decent finale though when everyone has their gun kicked out of their hand – and so it is kung-fu combat and not bad. Strange choices by the director and a lot of down time as the gang sings karaoke and talk about how much they love one another. Those Happy Days did not last for long.