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This is the story of three youngsters from the countryside who arrive in decadent, dangerous 1930's Shanghai where they find life in the big city isn't quite the paradise they hoped for. As time goes by, each is forced into a life of crime. The Paradise Club, most infamous nightclub in Shanghai, is a den for underworld dealings, fat cigars and stage starlets. It would serve to house the danger and deceit that grip their world. The days of innocence have passed and the three men must grow up quickly to make hard choices.

In one of the most anticipated Hong Kong films of the year next to "Invisible Target", Malaysians can now catch "Blood Brothers" (literal translation from Mandarin - "The Way To Heaven") a full week before its Hong Kong general release. The credits read like a 'who's who' of industry heavyweights and it is with great pleasure that I write in approval of this bullet-for-poem crime drama.

The skinny; Three ambitious young men who leave their village for some big city action find themselves in 1930's Shanghai - a corrupt place choked with expensive cigars and yet cheapened by concubines and callgirls. The eldest, Kang is a power-hungry meanie who wants to own the world. The youngest, Hu, is obsessed with emulating his brother although he is only still trying to make sense of the world. Caught in between is Fung (Daniel Wu), who must try to fight the world to keep them together. As they get entangled in a world of crime, they face choices which asks for more than life and limb, testing the adage that blood is thicker than water.

It's a simple story, really. Grown men learn that absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, first time full-feature director Alexi Tan must thank every glittering chandelier in the film (there are no stars nor romantic illusions of pure light in decadent Shanghai) that Terence Chang and John Woo picked his effort to produce. In a show of elegant, muted performances, presumably to make way for less dialogue and more visual stylistics, Shu Qi provided eye candy as the token gangster's moll while the delicate Lulu Li played the virginal village beauty. The star performance must be split between Liu Ye, who owned the role of Kang like Al Pacino did Tony Montana ("Scarface"), and Sun Hong Lei, who played a one-dimensional mob boss in a way more sick and sinister than Paul Bettany in "Gangster No. 1". Another character which didn't manage more depth was Chang Chen's role as Mark, who is portrayed much like the rootless, nameless, reluctant killer in the PC game, Hitman.

As a result of the film's claustrophobic direction, Daniel Wu's role (like many others) is understandably underwritten and traded off, with only a token romantic screen time, although his interest in Shu Qi's character is necessarily incidental in a world where the best girls must belong to the biggest bosses. A solo song for permanent pouter Shu Qi is generous but fans will remember this mostly for its stylised violence - dead giveaways to John Woo's celebrated handywork. Gunfights reminiscent of his "A Better Tomorrow" were rousing, despite being impossibly cool. John Woo never wants logic, he wants magic. In whatever way a man must die, be it by a bullet or a fountain pen, that man will die cold - but always in style.

"Blood Brothers" will never be a satisfying gangland epic but it is a very refined, neo-noir action-drama with a particular interest in the finer, cinematic points of dying. With a killer (ha!) soundtrack to boot, blood may not be thicker than water after all, so we might as well have fun splashing some about.