Asian Film Review: Jianghu (江湖, 2004)

Another one off the DVD pile! Jiang Hu (江湖) is a 2004 HK gangster movie featuring Andy Lau,  Jacky Cheung, Edison Chen and Shawn Yue, directed by Wong Ching-Po.

The movie has two storylines,  one about a pair of young punks who are trying to prove themselves in the gangster world and another about two gang bosses who are fighting for power against eachother and unruly underbosses.   

The film is reasonably well made, but in the end I preferred the storyline with Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung about the senior struggle for leadership of the gang.    The veteran actors are lucky,  as their characters are a bit more substantial and of course their acting is better,  so its easier to enjoy this part.

Whereas the storyline about the younger gangsters doesn't come off nearly as well.  The motivations are unclear, the characters change motivation from one scene to another without much reason.    Ultimately it leaves you a bit unsatisfied with the film as a whole.  I felt like I only got half of what could have been a good movie!  

4/10.  Be sure to look for the cameo by none other than Iris Wong, aka Tungtung.  She has a brief scene. ;-)    also nice to see Wu Chien-Lien in a rare return to the screen.

ps - Watching this movie finally encouraged me to look up the Chinese term 'jianghu', which literally means 'rivers and lakes'.  Its a term from wuxia novels for what basically is the equivalent to the 'universe' that a story takes place in.  (as in 'The Star Wars Universe' or the 'Marvel Universe').  Its also become a slang for the 'underworld' of triads in modern Chinese language and used in a lot of triad related movies too of course.