Violência Máxima

Chow Yun-Fat stars in Tragic Hero, which is a reason to see the movie. However, Tragic Hero is nothing special, when compared to classics like The Killer and Hard Boiled. Chow Yun-Fat acts cool as always, and the action is nicely shot. You could say that Tragic Hero is a mix of The Godfather and The Killer. Tragic Hero is definetly worth a go, if you are a fan of Hongkong action movies. There are lots of worse movies than this. 6,5/10

Pacing was too fast, Exposition dump didn't help and things were just all over the place. Its one of those times where over the top didn't impress me. The deaths of people who were significant to the main character felt of that vain too. I didn't care a single bit.

Judging by the title I thought I was gonna have another tear-jerking but action masterpiece like The Killer, which is something that is far incomparable to this underwhelming film.

"Black Vengeance" is an alternate title for "Ying hung ho hon" AKA "Tragic Hero" (1987). I have just seen this on VHS, together with the first part of the story, "Gong woo ching" ("Rich and Famous"), also 1987. (The poster and 2 stills featured on the page are for a 4-DVD set of movies starring Rod Perry (The Black Gestapo), Fred Williamson (Black Cobra 2), Richard Lawson (Black Fist). The fourth movie is called "The Black Six"). Strangely, while the characters retain their original names in "Rich and Famous", in "Black Vengeance" Chow Yun-Fat's character is named Eddie Shaw, Alex Man (Man Tze Leung) is Harry, and Andy Lau is called Johnny. Also confusing is the fact that 1994 is given as the copyright dates on both films. Perhaps that was the year they were American-dubbed. According to the release dates given on IMDb "Tragic Hero" was released before "Rich and Famous". Was there any reason for releasing the sequel first? Despite some users' comments, I enjoyed these films, although they aren't among CYF's best such as "The Killer" and "Hard-Boiled" which are truly astonishing. However,if one day I come across a 2-DVD set of "Rich and Famous" and "Tragic Hero" I won't hesitate to buy it. Hopefully, these comments about "Black Vengeance" clear up, which was also for me, a mystery as to where it belonged in Chow Yun-Fat's filmography.

Considerably lesser sequel to Rich and Famous, the bad brother gets his revenge in this one, and Chow Yun-Fat and Andy Lau go for some payback big time. Two good action sequences, both of which are the only highlights of the movie. However, the seemingly goodness of the Triad folk from Rich and Famous is destroyed when a loyal CYF soldier shoots about 5 or 6 police officers rescuing him.

Danny Lee's performance as a wisecracking cop is the only spot of interest in this film, even though it has an excellent cast including Chow Yun-Fat, Carina Lau, Andy Lau, Shing Fui-On and Alex Man. CYF plays a triad boss who wants to settle down to a life of peace and plenty but Alex Man, a total psycho who has a big grudge against CYF, won't let him. CYF tries to escape to Malacca but to no avail. After his family is blown to bits, his cronies dead or turncoat, wounded and broke, CYF returns to Hong Kong to get into some serious revenge.

It sounds a lot better than it is. CYF is well-dressed and handsome, looks pained, grimaces and cries on cue, but somehow or another you just don't care. Andy Lau looks great, but that's about it. Carina Lau has a tiny, tiny little part which was nice, but she gets a bullet in the head early on so that ends that. Alex Man is a cartoon villain he's so over-the-top which at times can be intriguing but the writing here is so flat that he just comes across as a garden-variety nut.

Danny Lee is great though - too bad he's only a small blip on the screen of this dark (literally) and essentially boring movie.

Rent it, don't buy it. Or just skip it altogether.

This is the sequel to "Rich And Famous", even though it apparently was filmed simultaneously; it was released first because of CYF's boxoffice power.