A Killer's Blues
A Killer's Blues
| 29 July 1989 (USA)
A Killer's Blues Trailers

Fourteen years ago, Wai Yat Ming (Ti Lung) went to the US to settle affairs for triad boss Sun (Bao Fang), but ended up in prison. Finally free again, Wai wants to start over with his girlfriend (Olivia Cheng) and adopted daughter (Fennie Yuen), but he finds it hard with Sun's feuding son and nephew, Kit (Mark Cheng) and Chong (Roy Cheung), constantly raising trouble in the gang. Seeing his own misguided past in them, Wai fruitlessly tries to guide them in the right direction. He eventually decides to make a clean break and leave Hong Kong, but Sun's sudden death pulls him back into the violence of the underworld.

Reviews
Laikals

The greatest movie ever made..!

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Huievest

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

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SeeQuant

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

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StyleSk8r

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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dworldeater

A Killer's Blues is a very good triad/gangster movie starring Ti Lung and Lo Lieh. I would regard this as more of a drama than an action film, although the action scenes that are in the film are real well done and are more gritty and realistic than most films of this type. The film is never boring and the acting performances are excellent. Ti Lung is always great and while A Killer's Blues in not exempt from clichés in gangster films, Ti Lung's powerful performance grounds the film and gives it a lot of credibility as well. The support cast is also quite excellent with Olivia Cheng, Fennie Yuen, Mark Cheng and Roy Cheung. The plot is nothing new for gangster movies,but it is done well. The action scenes are part of the story and are not thrown in when they don't service the plot. The violence gets intense, bloody and brutal, but it is never gratuitous and builds to its furious climax. This draws a lot of parallels to the American western, where violence is the only way of life and even those who want to live peaceful lives must resort to those methods to survive. A Killer's Blues like many other heroic bloodshed films, it is very bleak and melodramatic. However, don't expect a non stop action, bullet ballet killfest. It is much less driven by action, but is a well done and powerful film that stars Ti Lung which makes this well above average. I would not regard this on par with A Better Tomorrow, but is way better than many of the imitators that get more props than this film.

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gorthu

Ti Lung stars as a killer gangster with a really bad wig at the start of the movie. He is hunting down Alan Hsu, and happens to kill him right when Hsu had ran back to his house and put his daughter in his arms. The problems begin right away in this movie. There is one of those great scenes that I have seen in many HK movies where a child is pointing a gun (a toy gun in this movie) at the person who killed their parents. The story heads in a good direction, at least that's what I thought. Ti Lung is going to raise the girl, but then he goes to jail. He gets out after 14 years, and his older brother played by Lo Lieh is there to greet him. Ti Lung seems to be looking to get back in the business, but they don't really make this clear. And even more unclear is the relationship between Ti Lung and the girl. Is she mad at him, or does she not know that Ti Lung is the man who killed her father? But how could she not know? This really made me mad. A very bad directing job not letting the viewers know what is going on. It's sad to see good performances by guys like Ti Lung and Lo Lieh get wasted by the horrible story and directing job. They end up making it clear that she doesn't know Ti Lung killed her father, but not until halfway into the movie. They couldn't have made this clear 5 minutes into the movie? It bugged me a lot. OK sorry for the rant. When Ti Lung gets out of jail, a crime boss played by Wong Hap wants Ti Lung to work for him. But Ti Lung likes his old boss, and can't be persuaded to join Wong Hap's side. Wong Hap's son is played by Roy Cheung, and he is a real hothead. I have only seen Cheung in maybe 10-15 movies, but he seems to always play the same role.There are some good moments in this movie (the final scene is very good), but overall there is not much to get interested in. I don't see any reason to further elaborate on such a bad movie. I was very disappointed with this, to say the least. It gets a little bit better towards the end, but it's too little too late.There is not much action, but what's there is definitely above average. Some nice stunts, and a nice brawl in a poolhall. Really brutal stuff in the poolhall brawl. Too bad it is so short of a fight. The other brawls are equally short, but have that brutality and realism that I like to see. There's also some well done shootouts, but nothing good enough to save this trainwreck of a movie.

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