Triads, Yardies & Onion Bhajees!

I have absolutely no doubt that this is the single worst film I've ever seen in my entire life.

Where to being on whats wrong with it, firstly don't believe the DVD case as this film isn't actually in colour, its actually in black and white. This doesn't actually add anything to the film and has no reason to be in B&W as the films not set in the past or anything.

The story is basically about loads of gangsters trying to do mundane gangster things. The story's very hard to follow and because of the absolutely abysmal acting you can't take anything happening seriously.

The movie is horrifically boring, badly shot and has one of the worst, most nonsensical endings in film history.

And finally I have to just say that on the front of the DVD case where the film gets good reviews and one reviewer even compares the film to lock stock, you should notice that this review is from the BBC... the people that made the film.

I find it difficult to objectively write a full review of this title "Triads, Yardies, Onion Bhagees" as I only could manage 30 minutes. The concept of a multi-culturally controlled London criminal underworld and their struggles for dominance and diplomacy is a good one. Yet, it has been used before. Anyone thinking the Grand Theft Auto games if you replace London with "generic American city"?

As a fan of innovative screenplay, hand-held cameras and gritty settings I should be sympathetic towards this film. It reminded me of a poor attempt between the Shield and Jean Luc Goddard's Breathless. Having now related those two brilliant titles to this makes me feel dirty... If you watch the film, you'll see what I mean with the whole film being done through hand-held camera with not one single establishing shot. This I can survive with for half an hour - but please... there has to be sometime to rest! The camera often tried to show off with some freezes and zooming in. Some showy angles and trying basically to be exciting. Often it seemed to much a student project but once in a while there was a good shot. Problem was with this, when one was found, the trick was abused and used over and over again. In some ways, it was like watching an advert with fast changes from angles and moments within a scene, dialogue being narrated much like one long incessant movie commercial for a film rather than a film itself. This concept never seemed to stop and became more confusing than flashy. These jump cuts being used like French New Wave on crack!

The soundtrack had some good samples. However, the problem lies there. They should have remained samples. Through the first 30 minutes, ten second samples were looped over and over in certain scenes. Changing to another sample for the next scene. In fact, the soundtrack NEVER stops. One scene is a bhangra sample on loop, next it's some gangsta rap. It's also louder than the speech. My thoughts for this were to fill the lack of dialogue and to cover it's poor content for when someone did say something.

The acting was waaaaay over the top. Not one actor held my attention, sympathy or drew any kind of interest. Many of the actors seemed to have little experience of acting to the point of being dragged off the street. The worst moment had to be the introduction to the Chinese boss. This was the only point where a soundtrack stopped... only replaced with an ambient tone... in an attempt to appear mystic and frightening, his accent was Oxbridge, but his overacting and whispering with little gestures were pretty cringe worthy. His bodyguards were the most disappointing - especially their dresscode which was probably attempting to be Matrix-esquire.

The realism is pretty poor without a doubt. Whether this was intentional, I am uncertain. Research into the subject is laughable. One thing that particularly bugged me was a character in almost every scene would have to have a gun as a prop at one point. Whether to caress, pull out and put on the table and shove in someone's face. Now, I'm not a gangster but surely some subtly is required. Maybe it's just to remind the audience we're looking at gangsters. Having said that, I did notice a blatant yet respectable homage to Scarface where a line of coke is done off the DVD box...

CGI and effects are non-existent. Clearly, this is a low budget film. So I wouldn't expect there to be. But one attempt at a gunshot when the bullet missed and hit the wall was embarrassing! The was a little fireball on the wall when the bullet hit which looked like a cartoon explosion from an old arcade game. On top of that, it was in colour. The rest of the film is in black and white.

Regarding the grainy black and white setting. A lot of people have been quite critical of this. Personally, like the concept of the film and some of it's ideas; it isn't bad. They're just done too many times, too blatantly and abused. Of course, this isn't the case with the black and white, since they've stuck to it. As a fan of New Wave, I would say black and white with a touch of grain deserves a nod every now and then; it's a great effect for a film. But unfortunately not to everyone's taste.

This film I'd say 2 stars. Maybe some people out there like watching it - personally I'd say it's good if you're 14, an aspiring "gangsta" and playing Grand Theft Auto when you should be at school, but for anyone else, give it a miss.

I had very high hopes for this film. It had won the best black and Asian film category at Cannes so i thought there must be something in it that warranted such high acclaim. I downloaded the trailer and viewing it made me even more excited about watching this film. The trailer was fantastic and made the film look like it was the best film ever made. I finally got the chance to view it at the Metro Cinema in Derby. I took my wife along with me. One of my best friends from school was one of the actors in the film, he played a character called Rocky. I had excitedly told my wife how good this film was going to be so you can imagine my disappointment when i finally did get to see it. I just didn't get it. The picture was grainy but i put that down to it being an artistic film. The acting was poor but i put that down to inexperience. The story was sketchy and by then i had ran out of excuses. It was so poor that i walked out before the film had ended. I never do that normally but i really was not bothered how this film ended as it would have made no difference to my overall opinion of it. If only the film was as good as the trailer, it would have been a classic. Sorry my friend, i'm just being honest.

The 2000s were full of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARREL rip-offs as producers and directors found themselves keen to replicate the success of Guy Ritchie's career. Few succeeded, and when you see the quality of a film like TRIADS, YARDIES & ONION BHAJEES! You can see why. This is a totally terrible, cheap, amateurish attempt at a gangster movie, telling the story of warring gangs. Every word is stilted, every performance diabolical, and the whole thing is aggressively racist. It was made in black and white for no real reason, and bullet hits are animated by some of the worst computer graphics you'll ever see. A film to truly avoid like the plague.

Wow how bad? very bad. The whole thing looks like it was shot on a 1990's hand held camcorder from Argos. I can only image they had colour temperature issues (tungsten/daylight) so switch to b&w problem solved. It adds nothing to the film. The Acting is well awful very forced which combined with the bad editing that exaggerates the bad acting. Again the editing some scenes seem like the whole disappearing rabbit trick, actors suddenly appearing. I read the bad reviews but have waited years to see it. The fact it was "banned" gives it some creditability until you realise it was probably banned for being crap. The violence is laughable if anyone seriously thinks this is what is secretly happening behind the closed doors of London then you must be very stupid. Yardies scene WTF. Its just terrible. Still got another 30 minutes to go, time to go in the bin. Save yourself and your time. To many great British gangster movies just this is not one of them.