Young and Dangerous: Reloaded

Despite what you may think from the movie poster, this is not an Asian version of Magic Mike. Young and Dangerous Reloaded is a reboot of a popular Hong Kong movie about a group of close knit friends that are gangsters. The series including this latest movie numbers fifteen in total including spin offs and prequels originates from a Hong Kong comic book also known as manhua. Unlike in the US, the Young and Dangerous franchise helped to glamorize street gangs with their sense of loyalty, easy woman and easy money.

This latest edition by rookie Director Daniel Yee Heng Chan sadly is a pale copy to the original that came out in 1995. Instead of mixing it up and adding his own stamp to the classic characters, we see all the original players in the original series albeit played by different actors. In addition, the plots does not deviate as well from the stories that have already been told making for predictable scenes that will leave you reaching out for the original movies and popping them in.

The actors starring with the two key roles of Chung Him Law as Chan Ho Nam and Lit Wai Leung as Chicken does not have the screen presence of the original actors that played those roles in Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan respectively. The two lone glimmers of light in this poor rehash is Goon Chung (Paul) Wong as Brother Bee and Sammy Sum as Ugly Kwan.

Overall, I would say shun this film even if you're a die-hard fan of the franchise. Going back to the above movie poster, it's quite a mockery of Young and Dangerous 2's movie poster where they all wore white as well. Albeit less stripper like. The movie is in Cantonese with English subtitles and can be found in DVD format in online shops like yesasia.com.

The Young and Dangerous franchise was well known for its film adaptations, starring Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan and Michael Tse, based on the manhua comic of the same name.

In this reboot, the charismatic protagonist, Chan Ho Nam, is now played by Him Law. The actor portraying him is extremely dull at most, he isn't extremely interesting, or looks similar to his Manhua counterpart. The plot is extremely different than the previous one, with one of the characters in Chan Ho Nam's gang completely removed.

In addition, it's hard to make up what happens in the plot as most of it feels too rushed, whereas in the first one, there was character development, it allowed for some emotional attachment to characters in the movie, however in this, the personalities for most of the characters were uninteresting, and mainly comes off as a weak portrayal of the characters.

I never gave it on the higher end of the spectrum mostly because they could have improved the plot, characters and everything, but it ends up as a colossal mess, with a huge budget.