Yee dam kwan ying

The crime business gets an even more banalizing makeover in this John Woo blowout than it does in the beige-suit-and-silver-tie-clip yakuza world of Takeshi Kitano's gangland melodramas. Reportedly thrown together in haste, this web of intrigues in a most routinely businesslike mob world has it all: tippling molls, Kun Opera, quadruple-crosses, buckets of Wooian sentimentality, and world-class, state-of-the-art action choreography. Woo learned from the masters Walter Hill and Sam Peckinpah and did them one better: nobody on this earth, except Steven Spielberg on a good day, understands the ballet of gunmen and camera like Woo. It's become a cliche, but it's true, and this underrated movie proves it: Woo raised the bar and then hurtled over it. He's the tops.