This delicious melodrama—bursting with twists that are shocking, terrible and often incredibly unlikely—is the feature-length film version of the magnetic and massively popular television series of the same name, and the only thing to do is grab some popcorn and settle in for the ride. Set in the world of high school, the film primarily focuses on two boys, Hao-yuan and Hing Cheng-yi, who find kinship in their shared pressures of family life, bullying, drug dependency, poverty, corruption and especially their fraught relationships to their fathers. The wild combination of the teenage angst one might find in Beverly Hills, 90210 with these boys’ predilection towards handguns proves to be as outrageous as it is undeniably appealing. This is the kind of over-the-top entertainment that will have you at the edge of your seat and shaking your head in delight.


Written by Mu Er, Zheng You Jie. Photographed by . With Huang Yuan, Wu Jian He, Zhang Jia Yu, Teresa Daley. (110 min. In Mandarin with subtitles. Hank’s Films Co. Ltd.)