Zui hou sheng li

Having the opportunity in 2022 to sit down and watch the 1987 Hong Kong movie "Zui Hou Sheng Li" (aka "Final Victory"), I did so without ever having heard about the movie.

I didn't know what to expect from writers Patrick Tam, Kar-Wai Wong and Tsang Yu as I sat down to watch "Zui Hou Sheng Li", because I had never heard about this movie. So the writers had every opportunity to impress and entertain me. And I figured that since Eric Tsang was starring in the movie, then there was a chance that "Zui Hou Sheng Li" was going to be enjoyable.

But the storyline told in "Zui Hou Sheng Li" was just downright rubbish. There was no red thread throughout the course of the movie. It felt erratic and chaotic, as if director Patrick Tam was just randomly shooting scenes and putting together. I found no enjoyment or entertainment here, and had to give up on the movie just 42 minutes into the playing time. I lost all interest in the storyline and the characters had no importance or appeal to me.

Even with Eric Tsang in the leading role, there was just nothing here that appealed to me. And while I enjoy Tsui Hark as a director, he was not a good actor, and his performance in "Zui Hou Sheng Li" was just laughably forced and bad.

"Zui Hou Sheng Li" was a swing and a miss, and this is not a movie that I will be returning to watch the rest of, simply because the movie had no entertainment value.

My rating of "Zui Hou Sheng Li" lands on a two out of ten stars.

Unfortunate that this routine HK gangsters & gags piece re-surfaces because of the Wong Ka Wai connection when so many major films from the colonial industry have been ignored.

The orphans grown to become underworld figures come into conflict when the imprisoned heavy leaves his old friend in charge of both his mistresses. Hark and Tsang are so young looking with skilled comic Tsang working against type as a heroic juvenile who even gets to scoop up his love interest from a moving car in slow motion.

The coloured gel lit Hong Kong club scene is quite vivid but comedy is totally unfunny and at odds with the serious elements.

This one is an odd glimpse of major talents in their early years, of little interest to the English speaking market so often unfamiliar with their important films.