Gong woo ching

While much better then the sequel, this is still by no means a great movie. Every once in a while it approaches greatness, but one thing or another keeps it from achieving it. The character development is better then usual, and Alex Man gives a very good performance as the ambitious, bumbling brother. The two action sequences are excellent, and the surprisingly low body count finale actually has some feeling and emotion in it.

When I sat down in 2021 to watch the 1987 Hong Kong action crime drama "Gong woo ching" (aka "Rich and Famous"), I must admit that I was expecting somewhat more from writers Stephen Shiu and Manfred Wong, especially since the movie had the likes of Andy Lau and Chow Yun-Fat on the cast list.

The storyline told in the movie, as written by Stephen Shiu and Manfred Wong, just failed to capture my interest, and the movie felt very chaotic and disharmonic. I must admit that most of the time I wasn't really sure why the narrative was at that particular point or place in the story.

Now, you would expect that a movie with the likes of Chow Yun-Fat, Andy Lau and Carina Lau on the cast list, that you would be in for something grander. But the movie turned out to be rather boring and mundane for my liking. So "Rich and Famous" made for a pretty lousy movie experience for me.

I managed to endure halfway through the ordeal, then I just gave up on the storyline, given the fact that it never appealed to me, and I was bored throughout the prolonged first part of the movie. So I just simply quit on the movie, never to return to watch the rest.

I am rating "Rich and Famous" a three out of ten stars. This was by no means a glorious or outstanding moment in Hong Kong cinematic history.

Although Chow Yun-fat is announced as the star of the movie, Andy Lau and Alex Man plays the two biggest parts as two brothers both working for Chow Yun-Fat but ends up as enemies. The movie doesn´t give as much action as one may have hoped, but there IS some great part of shoot-out in it. To sum it all up, it is an action-drama, with tremendous actors and a suprisingly well-written story. Any fans of Chow Yun-Fat or Andy Lau should like this as they both are excellent as their characters.

As a fan of Chow Yun-Fat and Hong Kong-movies I saw "Rich and Famous" yesterday, and I thought that it was pretty good. The movie wasn`t as good as "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled"(both 10/10), but then nothing is.

"Rich and Famous" had what I like about Hong Kong-films, namely cool characters and well-choreographed action, but it wouldn`t hurt this movie if it had more action.

A pretty good film, and Chow Yun-Fat is cool as always. 7,5/10

Despite the negative reviews I really liked this one, I thought it did the job very nicely. Made at a time when the heroic bloodshed genre was just taking off and with Andy Lau and Chow Yun-Fat as the stars it's impossible to dislike it. The story starts off a little confusing but soon boils down into a tale of rivalry between gangsters, and the cast, which includes Danny Lee and the great Alex Man, is excellent. Plus the vibrant action sequences have a sadistic edge which appeals; the ending in particular is spectacular. A sequel, TRAGIC HERO, followed.