It is said that this film is a combination of "500 Million Inspector Laylo" and "Cripple". I forgot about "Laylo", but I still remember "Lame Man". The reason why people can say that "Chasing the Dragon" can be compared with "The Lame Man" must be that they haven't watched "The Lame Man" again before.
Ah Hao in "The Lame Man" can stand up. His affection, his pursuit, his tyranny, and his actions are based on situation, character, and era. For example, the battle between Shixiawei and the Hakka Gang was for the sake of ascending the ranks and making a living. He doesn't have a deep hatred with the Hakka Gang, so he can let go of Duan Qi and stop it in moderation. In the last battle, at Inspector Yan's house, his failure was precisely because of arrogance, because of the illusion of invincibility, which made him unable to see the general situation and his betrayal subordinates.
And watch Chasing the Dragon. After the long foreshadowing of the first hour, it can only be seen that Ah Hao "can fight". His affection is only reflected in giving money and taking care of the people around him. On the other hand, in Lame Hao, Ah Hao could see his feelings for his brother from every move and even in a few vulgar jokes. In Chasing the Dragon, he hardly showed any violence and darkness, and the fighting and fighting that flashed in a few shots did not make people see any strength. In the end, Ah Hao's demise was simply because he didn't listen to persuasion; the movie was completely unable to show his growing arrogance.
The biggest failure is that Ahao sacrifices his brothers and sisters in order to kill the British. In "The Lame Man", Ah Hao finally took a risk because he had great confidence in dealing with other people, which was based on a wrong understanding of his own power. Moreover, in order to complete the killing game, he also made a very careful arrangement. If someone hadn't turned against the water, the probability of success would be great. But what about Ah Hao in "Chasing the Dragon", doesn't he really understand the meaning of Lai Luo's repeated persuasion that "you can't kill the Englishman"? Does he really think that with three or four big cats and kittens, he can handle the same number of Brits? If you don't understand it, it's utterly stupid.
Another failure lies in the abruptly setting the main contradiction as the contradiction between the Chinese and the British. This approach of catering to the emotions of mainland audiences seems to be a coincidence, but it contradicts the fatalism of "life and death depends on fate, and wealth is in the sky" that appears repeatedly in the film. Ah Hao has said this sentence several times, but the fatalism he brings is still not as contagious as the sentence "Am I drunk" at the end of "Lime Hao". It's all because "The Lame Man" used the whole film to foreshadow this sentence, while "Chasing the Dragon" is constantly diluting it.
In addition, the Hong Kong in the era of Lai Luo and the lame man is by no means the Hong Kong of the United States in "Chasing the Dragon" that looks like the Jazz Age. On the set and in the shots, Hong Kong was so clean that even the Kowloon Walled City could not see much dirt.
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