The romantic (and likely mistranslated) title says a lot about this busy but empty underworld drama, in which the false glamour of crime and punishment is dressed up with plenty of teenage angst and no shortage of cosmetic style. The lack of any larger then life heroics (so common in Hong Kong action epics) is refreshing at first, but after a while the mean street poses and back alley beatings all begin to look alike, although the physical violence is, apparently, more punishing to watch than to receive, since nobody is disabled for longer than a scene or two. Never mind the mechanics of the actual plot, following a self-reliant young hood forced to risk his small empire to protect a reckless, troublemaking 'brother'; the general thrust of the narrative is slanted more toward the martyrdom so dear to an alienated, lovelorn teenage rebel's heart. Legible subtitles (and a better Cantonese-English dictionary) might have made an improvement.

Andy Lau is a hood who has no time for life, just brief respites. His last girl friend had her pregnancy terminated before even telling him about it, because he hadn't called in a while. "You could have called me!" he says, but three years with him have yielded her neither money nor marriage. So he gets drunk and comes home to his bare apartment where his distant cousin, Maggie Cheung is staying while doctors run tests to see if she is going to die. Then she turns out to be ok, and goes home, while he stays and deals with the gangs of Hong Kong, particularly his inept "little brother" Jacky Cheung, and the competing gangs, and the ugly messiness that is his life.

Then he shows up at Miss Cheung's. When he has to go back to Hong Kong to deal with Jacky's messes, she says nothing, but calls his phone service and leaves a message. "Come back safely."

Kar-Wai Wong's first feature as a director can be viewed as a gloss on Melville's LE SAMOURAI, but it is not an admiring one. Lau is all professional when dealing in the underworld, but outside of it he needs to be human, wants family and love, things barred to him by his trade. Melville's romantic impulses are based on violence, the thought of the smooth, dangerous man in a beautiful and clean world populated by elegant adults, like a shark swimming through the clean ocean. Wong's world is crowded and garish ad ugly, populated by psychopaths and would-be psychopaths. Wong's sense of beauty lies in the respites, in Miss Cheung's arms, in people who care. I find it far more believable.

This film has been described as a Hong Kong "Mean Streets." It is certainly a violent film, but Kar Wai Wong is not Martin Scorsese.

Wong had written over a dozen films before he wrote this one, but it is significant because it is his directorial debut. It shows future promise that will be fulfilled in In the Mood for Love, which starred Maggie Cheung; and Happy Together. Of course, my favorite is the magnificent 2046 with Maggie Cheung, Li Gong and Ziyi Zhang.

Andy Lau spends his time keeping his hotheaded brother (Jacky Cheung) out of trouble, and romancing Cheung.

The film received a slew of nominations, but wins for Jacky Cheung as Best Supporting actor, and William Chang for art direction.

Fantastic music, in my humble opinion, featuring Take My Breath Away.