The True Hero is a fairly by-the-numbers drama which tells the story of a Triad boss named Wing (Simon Yam) who wants to go straight after his release from prison by becoming a teacher. This doesn't sit well with his long-time girlfriend Hung (Anita Yuen), who has grown used to the lavish lifestyle of a dai lo's girl. Things only get worse when Wing's students, led by the rebellious Kit (John Tang) begin to move into the Triad unter the tutelage of a rival boss, Tiger (John Ching-Tung). There's a nice shiny quarter in it for you if you can figure out how things turn out.

This is all pretty standard Hong Kong fare for the time, and The True Hero doesn't break any new ground in the genre. Sure, it tries to puff itself up to be a big commentary on the youth of Hong Kong and the perils of Triad influence ala School on Fire. But frankly, Joe Cheung's extremely average direction threatens at many points to make The True Hero into nothing more than a Lifetime movie of the week or an ABC afterschool special. At many times, it comes off as nothing more than a star vehicle for John Tang, who was a rising young actor at this point in HK film history.

The film-makers seemed to have forseen The True Hero's shortcomings, and so they attempted to pump up the excitement level by putting in a few bloody action scenes. Of particular note is the finale, which bears the obvious marks of veteran action director Stephen Tung. While these segments are certainly exciting and add a bit of punch to the movie, they feel terribly out of place for a picture of this genre. It's hard to take a film too seriously as having any sort of deep meaning when in one scene, characters are espousing the evils of violence, but in the next, they're blasting away people with full clips from a machine gun in each hand.

What really saves The True Hero are the performances of the two leads. Of course, Simon Yam is a bad-ass as always, even when he's being a bit nebbishy as a teacher. But, given Yam's experience, range, and body of work, one might expect just a bit more from him here. Thankfully, though, Anita Yuen, usually regulated to "cutie pie" roles, picks up the slack here. Sure, you're not going to mistake her performance for something from a Category III movie, but it was nice seeing her be a bit nasty.

RATING: 5.5