The story has been recorded in other posts so I won't repeat here.
Wong Jing is mixing genres again. This time he combines pieces of the Godfather, Casablanca, and Inglorious Basterds all into one film. And as with most things that you throw into a blender, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's just a confused mess.
The early part with his entry into mob world is pretty formulaic HK gangster style. We've got the mob guy with a heart of gold (Chow telling his cronies to stop the prostitution racket but keep up the gambling dens). We've got his rapid ascension in the ranks, the sworn brotherhood to the head guy (Sammo Hung who looks really obese now) and his loyalty to those around him.
then comes the Casablanca story... lost love. tragic romance. a reappearance of his young love who is now married to someone who's a freedom fighter of some sort. They even ripped off the airplane scene at the end. C'mon Wong Jing... did you just copy/paste that into your script? And of course the end is with Inglorious Basterd style massive slaughterfest of the bad guys as they're trapped in a theatre. Again. More copy/paste.
I love Sammo Hung and Chow Yun Fat. But the story was too derivative. The scenes were too overtly ripped off from other movies which are so famous and so highly regarded that it's hard not to see the cheap knockoff The Last Tycoon really is. In fact - the best parts of Last Tycoon are from Casablanca.
When is a homage really just a ripoff??? In this case I'm glad I didn't have to pay to watch this one.
Conclusion: It looks great (nice cinematography). It's acting is good. But the stories and scenes obviously belong to better movies. All that was missing was a piano player named Sam.
5/10
Wong Jing is mixing genres again. This time he combines pieces of the Godfather, Casablanca, and Inglorious Basterds all into one film. And as with most things that you throw into a blender, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's just a confused mess.
The early part with his entry into mob world is pretty formulaic HK gangster style. We've got the mob guy with a heart of gold (Chow telling his cronies to stop the prostitution racket but keep up the gambling dens). We've got his rapid ascension in the ranks, the sworn brotherhood to the head guy (Sammo Hung who looks really obese now) and his loyalty to those around him.
then comes the Casablanca story... lost love. tragic romance. a reappearance of his young love who is now married to someone who's a freedom fighter of some sort. They even ripped off the airplane scene at the end. C'mon Wong Jing... did you just copy/paste that into your script? And of course the end is with Inglorious Basterd style massive slaughterfest of the bad guys as they're trapped in a theatre. Again. More copy/paste.
I love Sammo Hung and Chow Yun Fat. But the story was too derivative. The scenes were too overtly ripped off from other movies which are so famous and so highly regarded that it's hard not to see the cheap knockoff The Last Tycoon really is. In fact - the best parts of Last Tycoon are from Casablanca.
When is a homage really just a ripoff??? In this case I'm glad I didn't have to pay to watch this one.
Conclusion: It looks great (nice cinematography). It's acting is good. But the stories and scenes obviously belong to better movies. All that was missing was a piano player named Sam.
5/10