This convoluted mess of a movie was released during the heyday of Hong Kong's New Wave Cinema so it's hardly surprising that most people missed this one.
The film is very loosely based on the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre, in which 13 people were gunned down during the course of an armed robbery of a gambling club located in Seattle's Chinatown.
While the plot for "Dark Side of Chinatown" starts off with the Wah Mee Massacre, the rest of the film becomes a fictional account which focuses on one of the gunmen who flees back to Hong Kong ( with a homicide detective hot on his trial) where he seeks help from his father (played by Kenneth Tsang who is, perhaps, best known for his role as "Ken Suk" in the first two "A Better Tomorrow" films) ,a HK cop who is himself entangled in a web of intrigue with the triad syndicates there which , ultimately, climaxes in massive bloodshed and results in tragedy for all involved.
I forgot the name of the unknown actor who played the part of mass murder/fugitive Benjamin Ng but the rest of the cast for the HK locations reads like a Who's Who of the major character actors from the films of the '70-'90s i.e. David Lam Wai, '70s Shaw Bros character actor Ku Feng, and Korean Martial Artist Hwang Jang Lee which necessitated at least one martial arts-type fight even though most of the film strove for a more realistic and gritty tone ( sloppy brawls and quick and brutal shootouts).
A very uneven film whose main point of interest is the mass murder which served as it'source of inspiration.
The film is very loosely based on the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre, in which 13 people were gunned down during the course of an armed robbery of a gambling club located in Seattle's Chinatown.
While the plot for "Dark Side of Chinatown" starts off with the Wah Mee Massacre, the rest of the film becomes a fictional account which focuses on one of the gunmen who flees back to Hong Kong ( with a homicide detective hot on his trial) where he seeks help from his father (played by Kenneth Tsang who is, perhaps, best known for his role as "Ken Suk" in the first two "A Better Tomorrow" films) ,a HK cop who is himself entangled in a web of intrigue with the triad syndicates there which , ultimately, climaxes in massive bloodshed and results in tragedy for all involved.
I forgot the name of the unknown actor who played the part of mass murder/fugitive Benjamin Ng but the rest of the cast for the HK locations reads like a Who's Who of the major character actors from the films of the '70-'90s i.e. David Lam Wai, '70s Shaw Bros character actor Ku Feng, and Korean Martial Artist Hwang Jang Lee which necessitated at least one martial arts-type fight even though most of the film strove for a more realistic and gritty tone ( sloppy brawls and quick and brutal shootouts).
A very uneven film whose main point of interest is the mass murder which served as it'source of inspiration.