Born to Be King

2000 [CN]

Action / Crime / Thriller

12
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 65%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 65% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 838 838

Plot summary

Triad member Chicken is designated by Taiwan's San Luen Gang to marry Nanako, the daughter of the fifth generation leader of the Yamada Gang in Japan. Later, the leader of the triad group gets murdered. Actually, all the San Luen Gang members suspect Chicken attacked their leader Liu, in order to make a chance for him to rule the Gang and thus have adopted an extremely hostile attitude towards him.

Director

Wai-Keung Lau Photo
Wai-Keung Lau

Top cast

Shin'ichi Chiba Photo
Shin'ichi Chiba as Isako Kusaraki
Qi Shu Photo
Qi Shu as Mei Ling
Alex Man Photo
Alex Man as Cheung Tin-Yeung
George Wang Photo
George Wang as Taiwan government official
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.04 GB
1280*714
Chinese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 56 min
Seeds 2
1.94 GB
1920*1072
Chinese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 56 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by DanStarkey

pretty good actually

While I have not seen earlier films in the Young and Dangerous series, I did find the plot easy to follow and reasonably engrossing, despite some rather awful cinematography. Jordan Chan carries the movie with a remarkable performance. Sonny Chiba plays his customary gangster role to perfection. Other characters are two dimensional. Ekin Cheng looks sullen and pretty; how does he see with all that hair in front of his eyes? Shu Qi pouts and looks beautiful, and plays an airhead so well that one wonders whether she is acting. Indeed, her efforts at crying look suspiciously like laughing. All in all, "Born to be King" is a quite a decent B movie, if one ignores the smarmy bits about Asian brotherhood.
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Reviewed by edchin2006 4 / 10

Something for everybody?

Love, romance, action, thriller, surprise ending, history of triads and China/Taiwan/Japan/Hong Kong relations, politics, betrayal, and the good guys/bad guys win in the end (happy ending). So, how could it turn out so boring? Whatever your interest, there was too much of the other stuff and too little of whatever your interest might be.

Maybe it was how poorly woven all the elements were? Maybe it was the not so surprising ending? Maybe you need to have seen the first five episodes in this series? Maybe you should skip this one!

For aspiring filmmakers/cinematographers this could be a valuable lesson in why the KISS principle should be applied to cinema.

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