An immigrant named Sonny (Chon) joined the Chinatown gang "The Green Dragons" when he was a kid, and worked his way up through the gang hierarchy. But as he quickly rose up the ranks and became notorious in the community, his life falls apart around him.
On November 2, 2013, Mark Kilian was hired to score the film.[7]Varèse Sarabande released the original soundtrack album on October 27, 2014.[8]
Release
The film had its world premiere on September 10, 2014 at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and then went on to be screened at a number of other international film festivals. The film also received a day-and-date theatrical and VOD release in the United States on October 24, 2014.[9][10] In December 2014, co-director Andrew Lau said that the film was able to make profit.[11]
Reception
The film has received largely negative reviews from film critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 15% of 26 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.1/10.[12]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 36 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[13]
However, co-director Andrew Loo had traveled all over the United States with the film, and said: "I've found that this is actually a real-audience film.....In terms of audience reception, I don't think we've ever had a 'bad' screening. It's interesting that the critics hate the film because it's not an easy film to watch. It's a genre film dressed up as an art house film because you have Marty's [Scorsese's] name on it."[14]
