The plot is simple, and quite old-school. And old-time triad boss came out from prison, and his time has passed him by. He's working some small time job while waiting for the next chance. By pure coincidence he ran into his son whom he hasn't seen in years. His son is caught in a mess with son of another crime boss, who turns out to be his old time friend in the gang. Meanwhile his son is facing an identity crisis, trying to figure out who he is in life. Father and son together gives life another fight, and you pretty much know how the rest of the story goes.
15 minute in you can clearly tell this is not just a story of Sham-long (Patrick Tam), but also a story for the city of Hong Kong. It's a love letter to old-time Hong Kong, clearly he misses the glory days of the city back in the 90's, and encouraging the city to give tomorrow a good fight. That underlying theme aside, the movie is engaging. Pace is fast, you don't feel bored at all in the movie, the only thing is the plot is uber-predictable.
And I gotta give kudos to Patrick Tam and Locker, the father-son dynamics really works, without being artificial. You can't help but feel how the relationship grew from awkward, misunderstanding and even hatred in the beginning of the movie, developing slowly to eventual love and care for each others. Patrick Tam especially delivers an award-worthy performance in this movie.
The movie is not without flaws. First of all, the ending is messy and rushed. It also lacks a proper climax. The movie has a muai-Thai boxing subplot, and the fight scenes are a little underwhelming. Some major support characters, like Sei-goh (Mark Cheng), are very uni-dimension and paper thin. It would be so much better if the plot can spend a bit more time to elaborate on the complicated-friendship between Patrick and Mark, and give Mark more backstory to work with.
Yet when the credit rolls up, I felt entertained, touched, and I feel better about tomorrow. That alone is well worth the ticket price.
