Rich and Famous and Tragic Hero
     
          
Rich and Famous
Director: Taylor Wong
Year:  1987
Rating: 7.0


By 1987 Chow Yun-fat was not yet the God of Actors that he was to be called later, but after A Better Tomorrow and the advent of Heroic Bloodshed he was cast in one action/crime film after another. Sometimes as a cop; sometimes as a triad member or killer. During the same period he also appeared in a number of comedies that were very popular. Not to mention the wonderful romance An Autumn's Tale and a few fantasy films, The Seventh Curse, Scared Stiff and Spiritual Love. All in 1987. He made 11 films that year and all of them are reasonably good to great. An amazing period in his life. After a Better Tomorrow he was gold.



This film brings out the heavy artillery with Chow, Andy Lau, Alex Man, Alan Tam, Danny Lee, Pauline Wong and Carina Lau - plus a few sidemen with Shing Fui-on in a nice role as Chow's bodyguard and Fan Me-sheng as a boss from Thailand who has to go into hiding. So just for the star power this is worth a visit. It turns out unbeknown to me to be the prequel to The Tragic Hero made in the same year. And co-incidentally, I have never seen that one (but will be soon). When I was going through my Chow Yun-fat phase a few decades ago like pretty much every Hong Kong film fan does, there were a few I just put aside and saved for a rainy day or in this case a covid day. I have to say it feels great seeing him again in one of these shoot em up pictures. He is as sparkling and cool here as chilled velvet - hair slicked back, dressed always in an impeccable suit and looking as calm as a spring day without a worry in the world. Other than the people trying to kill him of course.






Though the film circles around him, in a way the heart of it belongs to Andy Lau and Alex Man who play two brothers brought up in poverty by their father who was a refugee from the Mainland and was a coolie for much of his life. Yung (Alex Man) fancies himself to be a lot smarter than he is and always ends up on the wrong end of a stick. His brother Kwok (Andy Lau) is more under control and generally bailing his brother out of trouble and getting beaten up for it. Their sister Wai-chu (Pauline Wong) has to work in a nightclub of the drinking with men variety.







Trying to break their cycle of poverty they steal drugs from a gang run by Boss Chu. Big mistake. Andy gets taken prisoner and tortured by having to stand on a block of ice with a noose around his neck and steaming hot coffee poured down his throat. He is saved by Boss Chai (Chow Yun-fat) because they all came from Chiu Chow in the Mainland. Both brothers join up with Chow who is probably the nicest triad boss ever put on film. Merciful to a fault as it turns out, treats his men well and is as honorable as a gang boss can be. Rule Number One as a Triad Boss - if someone betrays you or tries to kill you - you show him no mercy. Unless you want him coming back in the next movie!





A fair amount of action - a great rumble near the beginning, a big shootout in which Chow does his two handed gun bit - one being a machine gun as he mows down the opposition and then the finale - and a few small scenes in there as well. Carina Lau shows up about halfway through the film as nurse, Alan Tam is their friend who is not made of the right stuff to be a gangster and Danny Lee is of course a manic cop who promises to bring Boss Chai down. Maybe in The Tragic Hero. I look forward to it.  This is second tier Chow but that is still better than most. The plot of gang warfare, loyalty and betrayal is standard Hong Kong fare and has been done before many times but I rarely tire of the HK version of it. Especially if it has Chow Yun-fat in it.
Tragic Hero
Director: Taylor Wong
Year:  1987
Rating: 6.5



I suppose it doesn't really matter but it strikes me as a bit strange. This film was released in February of 1987 while its prequel, Rich and Famous, was released in May of the same year. Yet at the beginning of this film they show clips from Rich and Famous to catch the audience up - from a film they could not have seen. Why didn't they just release Rich and Famous first? Especially as that film fills out the characters and the plot making Tragic Hero more comprehensible and the audience has a bigger investment in the characters. Fortunately, by chance I saw Rich and Famous first - clearly the way to do it.






In Rich and Famous nearly all the major players and most of the minor players lived and made it to this film. A little surprising in that there was a lot of killing in the film. I can't say the same about this one - the word tragic in the title says a lot. A few years have passed since the previous film. Boss Chai (Chow Yun-fat) is now married to Po Yee (Carina Lau) and they have a son. He is still the number one Triad gang leader but has gone a bit soft. His men have grown old, his ambitions have diminished and he has moved largely into legit businesses. Kwok (Andy Lau) has relocated to Malacca in Malaysia where he has gotten married to a Malay, opened a restaurant and adopted enough children to field a few baseball teams. Wai-chu (Pauline Wong) is still the household maid and secretly in love with Brother Chai. Inspector Cheung (Danny Lee) has been promoted and is still after Brother Chai but a growing respect between them has slowly taken place. And Yung (Alex Man) is now the number two man to Boss Chu (Ko Chun-Hsiung) who was Boss Chai's rival in the first film but they have patched that all up. Peaceful and calm.








But you know it won't stay that way. This is Chow Yun-fat and guns are going to be brought out eventually. It takes a while though. Much of the film slowly ratchets up the tension between Chai and Yung. Yung has gone full psycho and wants revenge and to be the top boss. And to give him credit, he is pretty clever and outsmarts Chai every step along the way. Chai keeps hoping for peace but you don't negotiate with a snake. And though there is some violence along the way, director Taylor Wong (of both films) keeps it mainly to threats - until of course the finale which is just nuts. Good nuts. A huge bombastic gunfight in which no one ever runs out of bullets - well once - and bullet wounds are treated as mosquito bites. One guy has to be shot about 20 times before he finally goes down. Dead bodies from the rooftops like leaves in an autumn wind. This is a Triad drama more than an action film. More Godfather than Scarface. A great cast goes a long ways. Kudos again to Shing Fui-on as the bodyguard and under a toupee you may spot Elvis Tsui as one of Yung's main killers.