Blood Brothers
By violetfairy
(3 reviews)
from Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire
, 07 Jul 2010
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
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The six main characters in the film are: Fung ( Daniel Wu), Kang ( Liu Ye) and Xiao Hu ( Tony Yang).
Boss Hong( Sun Honglei) is the owner of 'The Paradise Club' and his brother Mark ( Chang Chen) and Lulu (Shu Qi) the prime 'Moll' & dancer/ singer at the club.
Kang gets work at the 'Paradise Club' & tries to arrange for Hu and Fung to get work, but Boss H's man asks them to do another job. They end up in another Bosses warehouse and were told to steal a crate, they open it to find guns. Fung is not happy with stealing, the guns, so he argues with Kang & Hu and leaves the two brothers to take the crate. When Fung left, Kang & Hu carry the crate out to find henchmen waiting, Kang then realises they had been set up. Just as Hu was about to be seriously hurt, Fung comes back and shoots everyone and so Kang & Hu are saved. Fung was shaken up for awhile after killing those people.
Back at the Paradise Club Boss H impressed by the three introduces them to his gangster style 'brotherhood'. Kang loving his new role rises in the ranks to be Boss H's henchman, Hu becomes a drunk as he can't cope with shooting anyone and Fung is infatuated by Lulu and tries to get out of ruffing up or killing people.
This next part of the film is where the 'brothers' fall apart, Boss H orders the killing of his brother Mark and Lulu after he finds out they have been having an affair for 10yrs behind his back. Fung is not happy as he loves Lulu and is friends with Mark. Kang warns Fung that if he leaves to warn Mark and Lulu he is not their 'brother', Fung being a good guy walks out on Kang and Hu.
Fung finds Mark and Lulu already packing to leave, Fung offers a gun to Mark just as the first rounds from a machine gun goes off. Kang,Hu and henchmen start shooting some more. Fung is hit pretty badly in which Hu runs over to see how bad he is. Kang comes over ready to finish him off, when Hu turns around with his gun and shoots his bother and Kang is lying down on the floor.
Mark kills off the rest of the henchmen, then Lulu, Hu and Mark get Fung into the car and they drive away. Again Back at the Paradise Club, Boss H is talking to Kang (who was not badly injured) who is not happy, he goes to get a gun from his cigar case when Kang stabs him in the side with a chop stick( well it looked like a chop stick, although it could of been a thin knife). Mark goes back to the club ready to kill his brother- Boss H only to find him dead. Kang is in the club feeling really happy and so takes over as the Boss.
Kang now the Boss is challenged by a henchman, in which he kills & Hu comes back to the Club to make 'peace' with his brother, but Kang was having nothing of it and orders his men to kill his own brother. Fung then finds Hu dead in the car, so Mark, Lulu and Fung go back to his home town. They stay with Fung's mother & Sister, also Fung finds his first love Su Zhen (Li Xiaolu) helping his sick mother. Fung falls back in love with Su Zhen, Mark and Lulu decide to stay. After a few days Su Zhen was showing Lulu around the market, when suddenly you hear shots, blood spurting and then Lulu going down. Gunmen also showed up at Fung's home but Mark shoots them dead, Mark and Fung go looking for their girls to find poor Lulu dying. Fung holds Su Zhen tight as Mark is on the floor next to Lulu.
So here comes the last showdown of the film, back at the Paradise Club a new Prima Moll - Singer/dancer is introduced and backing girls. They dance on the stage with the people looking on, in the back of the club sits Kang in his office and his men are guarding outside. Fung goes on the stage, takes the microphone and tells everyone that the club is now closed. He shoots the air and everyone disappears, Kang's henchmen start shooting, Fung and Mark kill them one by one. Until Fung gets to the office, Fung and Kang exchange words then shoot each other, Mark comes into the room and shoots Kang a few times until Fang tells him to stop. Mark thinks about it and then shoots Kang dead, Fung is looking on at his old friend Kang and Mark carries on walking out of the clubs back door. At the very end is a flashback of the 'brothers' Kang,Hu and Fung joking around at a table before they left for Shanghai and on that table is the advertisement for the 'Paradise Club' and that is where the film ends.
I thought the film was not a bad modern version of a 1930's gangster movie. The Paradise Club really had the essence of the 1930's with the music,dancing and costume. It had a few good action scenes, the main characters were not bad actors/actresses and in the end it turned out to be a sad story, for what looked like 'Paradise' to young innocent men in the start of the film, turned out to be Hell at the end.
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By Moviemania (16 reviews) , 24 Jul 2011Well made and some good action ganger shootings to add. I did enjoy it from start to finish. Some scenes were borrow from classics such as Godfather for example.
By a customer , 29 Jun 2011I only wanted to see Shu Qi. She didn't really play a big part. Skipped most of the movie, looks like a ganster movie.
