Flaming Brothers (18) |Home Ents Review

Manic, massed shootouts, comedy, drippy romance and even some song and dance: there’s fun to be had here but Flaming Brothers is no classic of the ‘heroic bloodshed’ action genre.

Orphans Cheung Ho-tin (Chow) and Chan Wai-lun (Tang) grow up together on the streets of Macau. As adults, the blood brothers become triads who are honourable enough not to traffic drugs. This brings them into conflict with senior triad Ko (Tse). A triad council negotiates peace between our heroes and Ko, who sends Wai-lun to Thailand to traffic weapons. 

Meanwhile, Ho-tin meets Ho Ka-Hei (Ha) – who brought the orphans food when they were on the streets but subsequently moved to Hong Kong. Ho-tin eventually gives up his gangster ways and moves to Hong Kong too, managing a supermarket with Ha. 

But when Ko’s hatred of Wai-lun resurfaces, Ho-tin must choose between love and honour. Will he return to Macau for one last showdown, his limitless automatic pistol in his hand? 

There are some great shoot outs, nicely coloured and caught on film by cinematographer Jingle Ma. There’s a lot of blood spilled, which is pretty signature for the ‘heroic bloodshed’ genre. The execution of a child is unusual for this type of film but not particularly graphic. 

Unfortunately, the buddy stuff and the love stuff and the odd veers into comedy and song and dance aren’t very engaging. This is a pretty generic story told in a rather flat and unstylish fashion, without being gritty and realistic. Auteur writer-director wrote the screenplay but you wouldn’t really know.