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Donnie Yen, Eddie Kwan, and Lam Wai Kin are
best friends who want to apply for cadet school. Donnie and Wai
Kin get in, but Eddie doesn't because his father is involved in
the triad. Eddie is disheartened because he doesn't want to learn
the triad business. But he remains good friends with Donnie and
Wai Kin. Eddie's younger sister, Anita Lee, has a crush
on Donnie. Wai Kin secretly likes Anita, but he is too shy to
tell her. Donnie's older sister (played by Lo Yuen Yan)
is also quite close to the bunch. Donnie relies on his sister
a lot because she is the only family member he has.
The beginning part of this series focuses on Donnie being assigned
as an undercover cop. This part was fairly emotional because he
had to witness the killing of his fellow undercover. After he
successfully completes his mission of bringing the gang down,
he becomes the crack member of an SDU team (presumably equivalent
to an American SWAT Team). Wai Kin also applies to be part of
the force and he gets in.
Eddie's dad dies in a conflict with another triad leader, so
Eddie has no choice but to take over his dad's business. At first,
he is not competent enough to deal with many of the problems within
his triad. His "triad uncle" (basically someone who
worked for his dad) and Lai Yiu Cheung (a triad member)
were also backstabbing him. At one incident, he accidentally kills
the person who murdered his dad. Because of this, a new man (played
by Lam Chung) affiliated with the guy Eddie killed comes
after Eddie, seeking for revenge.
Eddie's triad uncle and Lai Yiu Cheung work together with Lam
Chung to bring Eddie down. Anita finds out about this, but before
she could do anything, she gets kidnapped by Lai Yiu Cheung's
crew. Sometime before this, Eddie got to know a hostess/bar girl/pimpstress
played by Mimi Kung who knew some ropes of the triad world.
With Mimi's help and also the help of Donnie's force, Eddie rescues
his sister Anita. He forgives Lai Yiu Cheung but punishes his
triad uncle by striking him with a baseball bat several times
(this scene was rather scary). After this event, Eddie decides
to change (for the better or worse, I am not quite sure) and have
things done his way. A prelude to lots of bloodshed...
Back to Donnie -- he is considered valuable in the special force
he joined, but he is on bad terms with his fellow officers, one
of them being Wong Ji Yeung. Wong constantly picks on Donnie
and his friend, Wai Kin. The conflict worsens when Donnie and
Wong both fall for the same woman, Pauline Yeung. Pauline
is a policewoman who also happens to be the sister of the chief
commander of Donnie and Wong. Anita, who has liked Donnie for
a long time, is pretty upset about Pauline's appearance. Donnie
and Wong eventually learn to get along.
Eddie starts to become the target of Donnie's special force,
because he engages in illegal activities now. At first, Donnie
and Wai Kin are reluctant to attack Eddie, for Eddie has been
their best friend all their lives. Around this time, Anita confesses
to Donnie about her liking for him, but Donnie rejects her. Saddened
by this, Anita overdoses on sleeping pills. Eddie (who really
loves his sister) is mad at Donnie for this. Wai Kin then comes
into the scene and proposes to Anita. They get married soon and
are both very happy. But upon the marriage, Eddie asks Wai Kin
to drop out of the special force. So Wai Kin quits being in the
force and reluctantly decides to work for Eddie.
Eddie, by this time, is pretty power-hungry and wants to get
rid of all of his opponents, including Lam Chung. He tries to
kill Lam Chung but fails. Lam Chung then goes to Donnie's force
for some sort of "protection," in exchange for evidence
of all of Eddie's illegal doings. Eddie is then arrested but released
out on a bail. Eddie then visits Donnie's sister, but one of his
enemies comes to kill Eddie and ends up killing Donnie's sister
instead. Eddie stabs the killer with a knife many, many times
(this part was also rather scary). Predictably, Donnie holds Eddie
responsible for the death of his sister and now wants to bring
Eddie down for sure. But Eddie sends Lai Yiu Cheung to kill Lam
Chung (the only witness to Eddie's criminal deeds), so Eddie is
sentenced not guilty. Donnie is extremely bitter about this.
Eddie makes Mimi his personal assistance and they get together.
Mimi is now pregnant. One day, Mimi runs into her old friend,
played by Bobby Au Yeung. Mimi introduces Bobby to Eddie
and they do some illegal business deals together. Anita is also
pregnant with Wai Kin's baby. This makes Wai Kin worry about his
family's future, as he is caught between working illegally with
Eddie and living straight. He keeps on dreaming about Anita and
their baby getting killed by the mafia. In turn, he decides to
work behind Eddie's back with Donnie's force. Eddie finds out
about this and is ready to kill Wai Kin (his own best friend/brother-in-law!
What a bastard!), but he lets Wai Kin go after reminiscing about
all the good times they had before.
Eddie sets up one of the older people in the triads to be killed
by Donnie's force. In the process, Pauline's brother (the chief
commander of the force) is sacrificed. Donnie is now determined
to bring Eddie to justice. This also makes Wai Kin feel responsible
for the death of his former senior. Eddie also tries to kill Bobby,
but only manages to kill a few of his men. Bobby wants to avenge
for his friends so he kidnaps Mimi who was in the later stage
of her pregnancy and demands her ransom from Eddie. Eddie is very
worried about her and goes to meet up with Bobby, but Donnie keeps
on following him and would not get off his case. Eddie desperately
explains his situation to Donnie and asks him to leave him alone,
but Donnie instead offers to "help" Eddie in rescuing
Mimi, even though Eddie does not want help. But when Bobby's men
sees Eddie arriving with the police force, one of them shoots
Mimi (right in her stomach too). Mimi dies not long after, and
Eddie blames Donnie for her death. Donnie feels guilty about it
too. Eddie later finds Bobby and finishes him off.
Wai Kin attains a diskette that is a key to Eddie's criminal
activities and hides it in a stuffed animal, in his attempt to
turn it in to Donnie. Eddie suspects that Wai Kin has betrayed
him again. This time, he shows no mercy, as he shoots Wai Kin
and burns his dead body. When Anita finds out what her brother
has done to her husband, she becomes hysterical. In her struggle
with Eddie, she falls off the stairs and goes to the hospital,
making Eddie worry. Afterwards, Anita finds the diskette in the
stuffed animal, but she decides to forgive Eddie and wishes to
go to Canada with him to start anew. She has also given birth
to her baby, whom Eddie loves very much (which I find quite surprising,
since he heartlessly murdered the baby's father).
Eddie could not stay in Canada for long, because he discovers
that his right-hand man, Lai Yiu Cheung, has been screwing around.
He comes back to Hong Kong to finish him off but Lai Yiu Cheung
escapes. Eddie later kills Lai Yiu Cheung and frames the murder
on Donnie, who happened to come to the scene. Donnie is charged,
but one of his cop friends (who was also Eddie's ex-friend) help
him escape. In search of Donnie, Eddie's men kill the cop friend's
dad. Anita hears this and screams at Eddie, because the cop friend's
dad was someone she was close to. Eddie starts choking Anita out
of anger, but snaps out of it and lets her go after he hears the
babycry. Anita then realizes that her brother had turned completely
bad, so she decides to give the diskette to Donnie. But Eddie
appears in time to snatch the diskette, but he fails. As Eddie's
men chased after Donnie and Anita to take the diskette back, they
end up shooting Anita. She falls in a coma.
*THE SPOILER ENDING*
Everything is over for Eddie now that the evidence is in Donnie's
hand, so Eddie escapes with some of his loyal guards and Anita's
baby. But Donnie's force chases him and the baby ends up dying
in the process (the scene where Eddie buries the baby with his
bare hands was very sad). In the end, Eddie wants to kill Donnie
for bringing him to the ruins, so he kidnaps Pauline (Donnie's
girlfriend) and holds her as a hostage. Donnie and Anita (who
woke up from her coma) go after Eddie. Donnie and Eddie fight
in a high construction building. Anita tries to tear them apart
and yells at Eddie not to kill Donnie, but Eddie accidentally
pushes her off the building and she dies. Eddie, enraged, tries
to kill Donnie even more, but as Donnie falls off the building,
he drags Eddie with him. Donnie grabs onto something and holds
Eddie's hand. He tells Eddie to not let go, but Eddie would rather
die than to be saved/captured by Donnie, so he forces himself
go and dies.
The last scene is where Donnie takes off with Anita's corpse,
along with Pauline.
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The 80's cop/triad series were marred by cheap car chase scenes
and fake-looking props, but they were also supported with some
solid plot. "Fei Fu.." evidently falls into this category.
In the late 80's, Eddie was type-casted as a villain in most
of his series. Needless to say, he was super nasty towards the
end of "Fei Fu," but one thing redeeming about his character
was his devotion to his younger sister, Anita. In some ways, this
relationship was more touching than Eddie's romance with Mimi
or Donnie's with Pauline (which I found very dry and boring).
With Eddie's temper, I seriously expected him to kill off Anita
at any moment. He didn't; instead, he even risked his life visiting
her at the hospital when she fell in a coma. I suppose blood really
is thicker than water. Of numerous collaborations Eddie had with
Anita in his TV series, he seems most compatible with her as siblings
than anything else.
I enjoyed performances by both Anita and her onscreen husband
Lam Wai Kin in the series. Lam Wai Kin had the perfect looks for
portraying a timid, insecure individual, later caught in a dilemma
with his two best friends. I was very unhappy when Eddie killed
him because I wanted his marriage with Anita to last longer. He
had to pay too big of a price to marry Anita by quitting the police
force he was in. It seemed stupid of Eddie to make him work in
the triad because he was an ex-cop who probably had more good
genes in him.
Although Eddie's ending was rather gory, I would say he deserved
what he got. However, I cannot speak in favor of Donnie either,
as I was not too fond of his character either. I liked him in
the beginning where he was working as an undercover, with all
the turmoil he had to go through, but he turned unreasonable after
his sister died (which he should not have entirely blamed Eddie
for). He also pushed Lam Wai Kin and Anita to backstab Eddie,
so for this, I find him just as responsible for them dying as
Eddie is. Pauline Yeung got on my nerves too because all she ever
did was being held as a hostage. And she was supposed to be a
policewoman too! At least with Donnie, he had plenty of good butt-kicking
scenes to balance out my dislike for him, but Pauline's character
really had no purpose other than to serve as Donnie's love interest.
A couple of pet peeves: what's up with the smoking scenes yo?
After Eddie decided to "change" and dress all sassy
(before then, he looked pretty scruffy with his long overcoat
and a pair of trousers), he suddenly started smoking like crazy.
In virtually EVERY scene, he smoked a cigarette. Even around pregnant
women, that's a big no-no! It even showed him smoking a cigar
at one point and this bothered me a lot for some reason. Mimi
smoked a lot too (coming from her job of being a hostess, I assume),
even when she was pregnant. Sigh~
Another thing was the cell phones the size of Southeast Asia,
but given the technology back then, that probably had to do. It's
still funny though. ^^
Mimi had the funniest facial expressions (in a good sense) in
the series. She looked composed and cool most of the time, sort
of like a wise old woman. I started laughing hard when her fellow
"bar girls" referred to her as "Mommy." It
was then I realized that she was a pimp mama. Sadly, she appeared
so late and died so early. I was hoping for more screen time with
her and Eddie, but I now know that this can only be catered by
"The Battle Among the Clans."
I close this review with one question: what would have happened
if Eddie did not get rejected from cadet school?
Answer: There would be no series obviously. Heh heh.
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