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Triad DVD Review

     Actors: Patrick Tam, William Chan, Michelle Wai
  • Director: Daniel Chan
  • Format: Multiple Formats, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: Chinese
  • Dubbed: English
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: Unrated
  • Studio: Well Go USA
  • DVD Release Date: August 26, 2014
  • Run Time: 91 minutes


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            More heavy-handed melodrama than hard-boiled gangster film, Triad is somewhat of letdown for what the title offers. Perhaps the filmmakers intended to give a more realistic portrayal of the Triad gang lifestyle, but the slow-motion romance scenes destroy this realism rather quickly. Although there are a few sequences of extreme violence, much of the film resembles something you might see in a soap opera.

     


            Beginning where nearly all gangster stories seem to start, Triad tells the story of three childhood friends who eventually grow up to become gangsters together. Inevitably, two are pitted against each other despite their childhood bonds. One of the friends is also extremely intelligent, but chooses to stay in the gang as he grows up. The film takes place over a long enough period of time that we are meant to believe that they have all grown up (and apart), but the film doesn’t do much other than change the actors clothing to show this transformation into adulthood.

     

            I’m being harder on this film than it probably deserves, mostly because there was very little worth praising or criticizing. The biggest offense of Triad is how unremarkable it is, leaving little mark on the memory while making 92-minutes feel far longer than it should. The DVD includes a making-of featurette, as well as a trailer.

     

    Entertainment Value: 4/10

    Quality of Filmmaking: 4/10

    Historical Significance: 2 /10

    Special Features: 3.5/10




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