There's probably some historical value to watching the Bund, since it more or less started Chow Yun Fat's career, and there might be a good story in there somewhere. But this movie isn't so much a movie as it is an entire TV series lopped into bite-sized pieces with a butcher knife and stitched together with barbed wire.
Essentially it seems to try and tell the entire story of the series it's based on (I say based on, but the movie is actually a compilation of scenes from that series, without any original footage that I can tell) in as few scenes as possible. Characters appear and disappear without explanation, musical cues cut out in strange ways, and major plot points seem to be leapfrogged in order to allow the movie to achieve it's brisk 100 minute length. I could follow the broader story but often didn't understand the details in any given scene, and any emotional impact it might have carried if told properly was entirely lost as I just tried to keep up.
It's possible that if seen in its original serial form it'd be worthwhile, though the production quality certainly doesn't live up to Hong Kong cinema of the time. But given the choice between seeing this movie and not seeing the Bund at all, I'd say the latter is the better option.
Also, shoutout to them using the intro to "Time" by Pink Floyd for suspenseful scenes. I somehow suspect they didn't have a license for that.
Essentially it seems to try and tell the entire story of the series it's based on (I say based on, but the movie is actually a compilation of scenes from that series, without any original footage that I can tell) in as few scenes as possible. Characters appear and disappear without explanation, musical cues cut out in strange ways, and major plot points seem to be leapfrogged in order to allow the movie to achieve it's brisk 100 minute length. I could follow the broader story but often didn't understand the details in any given scene, and any emotional impact it might have carried if told properly was entirely lost as I just tried to keep up.
It's possible that if seen in its original serial form it'd be worthwhile, though the production quality certainly doesn't live up to Hong Kong cinema of the time. But given the choice between seeing this movie and not seeing the Bund at all, I'd say the latter is the better option.
Also, shoutout to them using the intro to "Time" by Pink Floyd for suspenseful scenes. I somehow suspect they didn't have a license for that.