Man on the brink

This pessimistic cop movie was shown on german TV under the titel of 'Mann ohne Ausweg'. It tells the tragical story of an undercover policeman, very similar to 'Serpico'. The style is very minimalistic, very close to Hongkong streetlife, no visual effects etc. Important film of the Hongkong new wave in the eighties.

Granted, I wasn't really harboring much of any expectations for the 1981 crime drama from writers Kin Cheung and Kwok-Ming Cheung, as I hadn't heard about the movie prior to now in 2022 as I sat down to watch it. And the fact that there weren't any familiar names on the cast list didn't really amp up any expectations either.

However, as I hadn't already seen "Bin Yuen Yan" (aka "Man on the Brink") from director Kwok-Ming Cheung before, of course I opted to sit down and watch it, now that I was given the chance to do so.

The storyline in "Bin Yuen Yan" wasn't particularly thrilling or captivating. Sure, the movie was watchable, but it was a somewhat bland movie experience, especially since the storyline was a monotonous ride. There weren't any particular ups and downs to the storyline, so it was a pretty generic and uneventful movie experience.

The characters in the storyline were fairly much akin to the entire movie; that being bland, forgettable and somewhat pointless.

While I did manage to get through "Bin Yuen Yan", I can't claim that I was particularly entertained or impressed. And this wasn't a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. It turned out that I hadn't been missing out on anything extraordinary here with "Bin Yuen Yan".

And the ending of the movie was just a slap to the face after having sat through 100 minutes of bland crime drama.

My rating of "Bin Yuen Yan" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Man On The Brink is a very gritty and bleak cop drama. This has a similar plot to Infernal Affairs, where a police officer goes deep undercover in the underworld to infiltrate the triads. This is a pretty raw look at some of the more impoverished,crime ridden areas of Hong Kong. The film is very much downbeat and hopeless in tone. This is very real and hits hard like a blow to the solar plexus . The film is low on action compared to the crime movies that came a little later. However, Man On The Brink is never boring with some pretty solid acting performances. It's good that films like this are re released and are ripe for discovery for new audiences. I'm glad to have the opportunity to see this.