This Hong Kong/Mainland co-production looks like it had a budget of about fifty-six cents to work with, features performances that could politely be called average at best, the story is the same recycled sort of stuff presented in the genre dozens of times before and since. But where it matters -- namely, the action -- Bloody Brothers delivers a old-fashioned dual-fisted claret-splattered good time.

Bloody Brothers' plot is the well-worn tale of a young man rising to the top of the ranks of the criminal underworld. The young man in this case is Hung, played by Dicky Cheung, an actor not normally known for being a tough guy on-screen, a situation that doesn't change here. The film-makers try to butch little Dicky up, but his penchant for sunglasses and leather gloves makes him look more like a bouncer for a low-rent S&M club rather than a hardened gangster.

The rest of the cast doesn't fare much better. Dick Wei usually puts in solid work in his villainous roles, but frankly, he looks so ridiculous here, more like a modern-day Detroit pimp rather than a gangster in 1930's Shanghai, that it hard to take him seriously. As a sultry nightclub songstress, Yvonne Yung Hung certainly is easy on the eyes, but this is truly a jade vase role in every sense of the term, with the only aspect of note being how obviously and poorly she is lip-synching during her singing "performances".

But, as stated before, as many problems as Bloody Brothers has, when the guns come out, the viewer can forgive the shortcomings. Is this the best action ever put to celluloid? Certainly not. Is it derivative of other films, such as John Woo's? Most definitely. However, everything in the action department (with the exception of a few poor-looking wire-assisted stunts) is done well enough that it'll make a viewing of this film worth your time if you're into mindless bloodshed as a regular staple of your movie viewing diet.

RATING: 7