Young and Dangerous IV

JMF - The focus shifts back to Jordan Chan in this installment of the popular triad recruitment series. Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung plays an evil triad from the rival Tung Sing society (not related to his bad guy character from Y&D3) who enjoys listening to classical music, throwing people off roofs, and generally making life difficult for the Hung Hing Boys. He begins by killing Dinosaur, the branch leader of the Tuen Mun area, which opens up a vacancy in the Hung Hing board of directors, with both Chicken (Jordan Chan) and Dinosaur's ruthless righthand man Barbarian nominated for the job. Since the leader of the Hung Hing society was killed in Y&D3, his younger brother (played with finesse by Alex Man) is persuaded to take over the society, and he decides to split Tuen Man in half for two months and see who runs their half of Tuen Man better, Chicken or Barbarian (he must have seen his older brother do the same thing in Y&D2). After losing his girlfriend and numerous friends over the past three movie, Chan Ho-Nam (Cheng Yi-Kin) is cynical and tries to talk Chicken out of running for branch leader, but Chicken wants his share of the glory. Meanwhile, Roy Cheung is backing Barbarian his battle with Chicken. If you've seen any of the Y&D series, you know what's coming next, lots of beatings, girlfriends being brutalized, and plenty of revenge. It's nice to see Chan Ho-Nam showing doubts about the life he has chosen, and Alex Man and Jordan Chan give good performances, but there's nothing new here. It looks like everyone's just going through the motions. Michelle Reis barely even figures in the plot. A warmed over rehash of previous entries in this series.

JC - The fourth installment is probably the weakest one so far. Ultimately, when you are trying to make the decision whether to see Y&D 4, you should really keep that in mind and ask yourself do you really want to see another Y&D. For me, besides the Michelle Reis part, I enjoyed the film just fine. I hope when they do decide to make another Y&D though, all of characters die horribly and end the continuing gangster youth propaganda.