Xenon VHS cover

Goodbye, My Friend

AKA: Goodbye Hero, Shanghai Killer

1988

Director: Ho Lin Chow

Stars: Chow Yun-Fat, Kenneth Tsang

Chow Yun-Fat plays a 1930's crime boss who travels to Thailand to take revenge for his brother, who has been killed by a notorious gang known as the "Blood Sect." Enlisting the aid of the other Chinese gangs in the area as well as the police, Chow leads a daring raid on the Sect's trap-filled headquarters.

This is a pretty solid crime movie -- it's nothing spectacular, especially when compared with some of Chow's other work, but it's not nearly as bad as some of the A Better Tomorrow-wannabes that were floating around during this time. The plot is the usual revenge stuff here, but the actors do well with what they have to work with, creating some interesting, if not fully believeable, characters. Goodbye, My Friend also offers up a nice amount of action, some of it quite violent in parts, but, again -- like the movie as a whole -- it's not up to the level of the better films in this genre.

RATING: 6

Note: Xenon's version (Shanghai Killer) is one of their better transfers, with a slightly letterboxed picture and readable subtitles.

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