Film Review: War of the Underworld洪興仔 之 江湖大風暴 (1996) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 7.5/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
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In the roaring mid-1990s, Hong Kong cinema discovered that nothing sells quite like young men in sharp suits wielding machetes and nursing broken codes of honor. Herman Yau’s War of the Underworld (original title Hung Hing Zai Ji Jiang Hu Da Feng Bao) arrives as a lean, furious entry in that cycle—less a prestige drama than a street-level brawl caught on celluloid, vibrating with the same chaotic energy that made the Young and Dangerous series a phenomenon.
The story is elemental: a petty insult between the sons of rival triad bosses ignites a full-scale war. We follow a hot-headed young hanger-on (Jordan Chan, perfectly cast in his wheelhouse of cocky street punks) who finds himself sucked deeper into the violence, even as cooler heads like Tony Leung Chiu-wai try to navigate the bloodshed with something resembling strategy and regret. Yau doesn’t waste time on elaborate backstories; he throws you into the fray with tilted cameras, pounding soundtracks, and choreographed mass brawls that feel like bar fights elevated to opera.
What keeps the film from tipping into pure exploitation is the performances. Leung, even in a genre picture, carries the quiet gravity that would later make him an international star; his scenes suggest a man who understands the cost of this life but can’t quite escape it. Chan brings brash charisma and unexpected vulnerability, while Carman Lee and the supporting female roles refuse to be mere decorations—they snap back, scheme, and survive in ways that feel refreshingly grounded amid the macho posturing. The film’s best moments come not in the inevitable knife fights but in the small, tense conversations where loyalty is tested and old friendships curdle.
Yau directs with the breathless impatience of someone who knows the audience came for action and isn’t shy about delivering it. There are car chases, restaurant massacres, and alleyway ambushes shot with a raw, handheld urgency that sometimes sacrifices clarity for sheer momentum. At times the editing feels almost slapdash, as if the movie itself is running on adrenaline and cheap cigarettes. Yet that very messiness becomes part of its charm—a cinematic equivalent of the chaotic underworld it depicts.
War of the Underworld is not a profound meditation on triad culture like some of Johnnie To’s later masterpieces, nor does it reach the operatic heights of the best Woo films. It is, however, enormously entertaining in its unapologetic embrace of genre pleasures: blood, brotherhood, betrayal, and that peculiar Hong Kong melancholy that lingers beneath the gunfire. It captures a specific moment when the colony’s film industry was pouring out gangster pictures like factories once poured out plastic toys—fast, colorful, and destined for the video-store shelves.
I enjoyed it more than I expected to. For anyone who loves the wild, untamed energy of 1990s Hong Kong cinema, this is a solid, rowdy pleasure. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it spins that wheel with style and attitude. (Neo, 2026)