| Aaron Kwok, Charlie Young, Gow Ian
Iskander , Kelly Lin, Qin Hailu, Valen Hsu .
A young boy finds his unwavering loyalty to his loutish dad sealing
a decidedly grim fate in Hong Kong director-turned-editor Patrick
Tam's first directorial effort since his 1989 thriller My Heart
Is That Eternal Rose. There was a time when Chow Cheong-shing (Aaron
Kwok) was considered a smooth-talking ladies' man, but many years
of gambling have turned him into a bitter and abusive shell of his
former self. When Chow's admiring young son (Gow Ian Iskander) reveals
to his father that his mother is packing her bags and planning a
hasty getaway, the enraged Chow delivers a merciless beating to
the woman that leaves father and son to fend for themselves. Now
forced to resort to petty thievery as a means of helping dad pay
off a series of lingering gambling debts, the young boy soon ends
up locked away in a juvenile-detention facility. Soon thereafter,
when Chow drops by to visit his son, the boy launches a vicious
attack on his father that drives the pair apart for more than a
decade. Years later, Chow's son has grown into a man, and is suddenly
stricken with an overpowering bout of nostalgia and that leads him
back to his old hometown and the quiet streets of his youth. Just
then, far off in the distance, the emotionally scarred son catches
a glimpse of a man who appears to be his father. |