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| Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment |
Eureka Entertainment has been paving the way for numerous
disc releases of Hong Kong based films whether they be Shaw Brothers or Golden
Harvest releases through Fortune Star or Celestial Pictures as the floodgates
for Hong Kong action cinema have been reopened in the United States and
England. Among their latest and most
multitextured acquisitions as of recent is Tung Cho 'Joe' Cheung’s
action-dramedy adventure Flaming Brothers, a typical post-John Woo
programmer involving triad warfare and two orphans who make a lifelong pact to
be triad blood brothers to oversee their criminal empire. What sets this star-studded actioner apart
from the pack, featuring Alan Tang and Chow Yun-fat in the lead roles, is that
it was penned by eventual Chinese romantic master Wong Kar-wai and aspects of
the screenplay bear striking similarities to the mixture of love and loss
glimpsed in Chungking Express and Fallen Angels.
Cheung Ho-tin (Chow Yun-fat) and Chan Wai-lun (Alan Tang)
having grown up together as struggling street rats to polished triad blood
brothers into adulthood open their very own nightclub enjoying a taste of
success. However, their glory days are
short lived upon the arrival of gangster Ko Lo-sei (Patrick Tse) and his right
hand man Hsu (Norman Chu). Meanwhile
Wai-lun boorishly picks up a nightclub singer as his new girlfriend while
Ho-tin rekindles relations with Catholic schoolgirl Ka-hei (Patrica Ha from An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty) in an effort to try and go clean from a life
of crime. However, this proves fruitless
as after opening their own market Ho-tin finds himself like a tractor beam
drawn back into the criminality of Macau to help defend his triad blood brother
from being ambushed by rival gangsters.
Co-starring Hard Boiled actor Philip Chan and The
36th Chamber of Shaolin actor Chok-Chow Chung, Flaming
Brothers is a unique Hong Kong actioner that at once rides the crest wave
of success unleashed by such fare as A Better Tomorrow while forecasting
the emergence of one of Chinese cinema’s greatest romantic visionaries. Set apart from the pack for its emphasis on
falling in and out of love, a recurring theme for Wong Kar-wai and also a bit
of a male-bonding friendship piece ala Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive 2:
Birds, this is a white knuckled and at times brutally violent thriller full
of heart and emotion with characters you come to care for even as you resent
them. Featuring breathtaking
cinematography by Tokyo Raiders cameraman Jingle Ma and an eclectic
moody score co-authored by Violet Lam, Stephen Shing, The Melody Bank and Bruton
Music, it is as much of an audiovisual emotionally complex experience as it is
an escapist thrill ride.
A sizable hit at the Hong Kong box office continuing the action
extravaganza craze while pointing it in a new uncharted direction with emphasis
on the female perspective rather than just the male bonding of triad
criminality, Flaming Brothers comes to blu-ray disc for the first time
in a new 2K restoration limited to 2,000 copies. Featuring a limited collector’s booklet and
slipcover, the disc also comes housed with the original Cantonese language
track, an English dub and a new audio commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne
Venema. There is an archival interview
with the director for posterity as well as a video on locations by the CFK. As a Hong Kong actioner, it finds itself
posited between the explosive thrill seeking of John Woo while also tracking
the rise of Wong Kar-wai’s romantic sensibilities. The Eureka Entertainment disc is great and
the film is one of Hong Kong action cinema’s most unlikely and surprising
offerings yet.
--Andrew Kotwicki
