After Under Current: The Jianghu Brotherhood of the 1980s and 1990s

My dad took my brother and me to the cinema. The people in front of us, behind us, and to our right probably had never seen a combination as strange as ours.

The usual groups are elderly couples, young couples, best friends, or brothers.

It did make me miss those summer nights when my dad and I watched American television dramas: The Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, Fast & Furious.

Films can be a bond; games can too. If I keep going, I will end up talking about Black Myth: Wukong again. Recently I cannot stop myself from circling back to it, because there is so much I want to complain about and so much that still leaves me unsettled.

Zun Fei is a well-written character, especially in the scenes where he divides the money. His younger brothers respect him greatly too.

His presence holds the screen without feeling affected, which is rare. I have not seen many mainland actors who can carry that kind of scruffy, gangster-boss charisma.

The story itself is quite simple, but its central conflict works well.

The director is considerate enough to arrange an off-screen narrator, Xi Lai, as if this were an art film. Overall, it feels a little like someone recounting a biography.

At the end, the director even thoughtfully states what the film wants to say, so the audience does not have to think too hard.

“Zun Fei had talent. If he had been born in this era—if Zun Fei had been born in this era—he would have gained what he wanted: a career, love. He would not have needed to make a deal with the devil.”

Tragedy stays in the memory, while comedy merely passes by.

Zun Fei still has to die in the end, but the imagined empty shot the director gives us softens the audience’s feelings a little. Then the film uses those words above to comfort us at the end, so that we do not get trapped in it.

What stayed with me most was not really the romance, or the moral line about what one must not do.

It was the bond between Zun Fei and his brothers: when he divides the money and a brother gets no share, he says, take mine. When they do receive it, he tells them to spend half themselves and send half home.

That is a true big brother. He even teaches them how to live.

When he goes down to the gambling boat, he still looks after every one of his brothers. It may be a little performative, but it brings out that feeling of jianghu loyalty.

That is also why Yao Wu risks his life to save Zun Fei.

The casting for Yao Wu is excellent. At first glance, I knew he was the kind of friend who would stand by you. Though he gets lightly set up along the way, he understands this jianghu loyalty even better than Zun Fei does.

Zun Fei acts on it, but does not understand it. For Yao Wu, jianghu loyalty is everything.

This kind of loyalty is difficult to sum up. It was common in the old Hong Kong cop-and-robber and gangster films, so it suddenly brought back the Hong Kong films I used to watch. I grew up immersed in them.

Also, Douban ratings cannot be trusted completely. At first I saw its score—six points—and thought it was definitely a bad film. But it was quite good overall. Especially when the characters spoke Cantonese, the feeling really came through.

I like this film because it reminds me of the past. Saying that makes me sound even older.