Code Of Honor aka Triad Savages aka Brotherhood is an excellent triad film that was released and unearthed here in the US on dvd courtesy of Tai Seng Video. This lesser known gem actually was filmed and shelved, but due to the huge success of A Better Tomorrow and the popularity of its break out star Chow Yun Fat this was released later to cash in on the enormous success of both. Some may be disappointed that Chow Yun Fat (as well as Danny Lee) have only cameos in the film, but Code Of Honor(or whatever it's called) is a pretty kick ass entry to what would be known as the heroic bloodshed genre. Chun Hsuing Ko plays an old school triad gang leader that tries to leave his past behind and go legit. However, his underlings have different ideas about abandoning their criminal enterprises, which leads to murders that leave law enforcement to go heavily after the triads. The acting is solid and has a whole ton of regulars that appear in HK action and gangster pictures like Shing Fu On, Wai Lam, Dick Wei and others. The thing that sets this apart from a lot of other movies in this genre is that instead of gunplay, you have martial arts/kung fu style action chroreography which is excellent. The fights are ultra gritty, realistic and brutal, but you can tell that these guys actually know some kung fu. There is another, similar film made by Shaw Bros studios that came out around the same time as this called Hong Kong Godfather that I highly recommend if you dig this film. In my opinion, this film is very good and deserves much more respect. Code Of Honor is much better than most of the A Better Tomorrow clones and is absolutely worth a look for those that dig the genre.
Review of Yi ben wu yan
