General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

I Did It My Way

I Did It My Way (潜行) is a 2023 Hong Kong action crime film directed by Jason Kwan and produced by and starring Andy Lau, in which Hong Kong police pursue a drug lord who sells narcotics through the dark web.¹ The cast includes Andy Lau, Gordon Lam (Lam Ka-tung), Eddie Peng, Cya Liu, and Simon Yam.¹ It opened in mainland China on December 29, 2023, in Hong Kong on January 11, 2024, and in the United States on January 12, 2024.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	潜行 (Cantonese release; Mandarin-dubbed versions also distributed)³
Director / producer	Jason Kwan (also director of photography); produced by Andy Lau²^•⁴
Lead cast	Andy Lau, Gordon Lam, Eddie Peng, Cya Liu, Simon Yam, Kent Cheng, Philip Keung, Hedwig Tam²
Release dates	Mainland China December 29, 2023; Hong Kong January 11, 2024; United States January 12, 2024; Malaysia January 18, 2024¹^•⁵
Runtime / language	115 minutes, Cantonese²
Hong Kong box office	HK$11,324,153 from 182,957 admissions over a 58-day run (January 11 to March 8, 2024)⁶
Awards recognition	Nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Action Design at the 2024 Hong Kong Film Awards³

Spoilers

Plot

Four tons of methamphetamine arrive secretly in Hong Kong under the cover of a typhoon, to be sold on the dark web.⁵ The mastermind is a harmless-looking lawyer named Lin Zhen'an (Andy Lau), who uses live drug trafficking on the dark web while killing people and using the law to escape consequences; he does not know he has been boxed in by the police and his enemies, and his closest brother and beloved wife become entwined in the fallout.¹ The police must find the "boss" behind the dark web operation and push their long-embedded undercover officer to the front line.³

The undercover officer is Sau Ho (Gordon Lam), who has spent more than a decade inside the drug organization; his handler is Yuen Muk Yu (Lam Suet), his wife is Maggie Kong (Hedwig Tam), and George Lam (Andy Lau) is a barrister whose fiancée Vivian Ha (Cya Liu) is pregnant. Eddie Fong (Eddie Peng) is superintendent of the Cybercrime Investigation Unit, and Chung Kam Ming (Simon Yam) is his superior.⁷ Lau's character is billed as George Lam in the English cast list.⁴

Production and release

Jason Kwan, who had co-directed Chasing the Dragon and its sequel, directed the film and also served as its director of photography.⁸^•⁴ Chin Ka-lok was the action director, Day Tai composed the score, and Alan Wai-Lun Cheng edited.⁴ The film was produced by Andy Lau's company among other studios, with Shanghai Ben Xiaohai Film and Television Culture Media and Focus Films among the production entities.⁹^•⁷

Casting significance. The film marked Andy Lau's return to a major villain role on the big screen for the first time since Protégé (2007), a gap of 16 years, and he also fired a gun on screen for the first time in many years, a point director Kwan highlighted at the premiere.¹⁰^•¹¹ It reunited Lau and Gordon Lam on screen for the first time since Firestorm (2013).¹²

Promotion. A promotional campaign had Andy Lau and cast member George Lam covering the 1982 song "Hard to Separate Good and Evil", with a music video made using AI-generated visuals of the two; its director, Junie Lau, was discovered by Andy Lau through social media after winning an international competition with a self-made AI music video.⁷

Box office and reception

In Hong Kong the film ran for 58 days from January 11 to March 8, 2024, earning HK$11,324,153 from 182,957 admissions.⁶ It received nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Action Design at the 2024 Hong Kong Film Awards.³

Critical response was mixed to negative. The South China Morning Post gave it 2 out of 5 stars, writing that an illogical screenplay rendered Lau's crime boss unreasonable to the point of comedy and that the visualization of the dark web looked foolish.¹³ CNA Lifestyle's review scored it 3 out of 5, judging that the film nailed the matchup between Lau and Gordon Lam but wasted Eddie Peng, and calling its structure a blend of an undercover-cop tale, a Hong Kong thriller, and a cybercrime picture.¹⁴ RogerEbert.com described it as well-polished action filmmaking with a strong ensemble cast, while noting a conventional plot.⁸ On aggregate ratings it held an IMDb score of 5.2/10 and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 20%.¹⁵

Reviewers repeatedly identified the same strengths and weaknesses: strong performances from Lau and Lam, high production values, and a well-staged wine-cellar fight scene for Eddie Peng, set against a familiar undercover-cop storyline and a screenplay with numerous writers attached.¹²^•¹⁴^•⁸

Production notes

During filming of a stunt sequence in Tsing Yi, Gordon Lam was injured while protecting a child actor he was holding from falling on uneven ground with gravel and rocks; he was temporarily immobilized and taken to hospital, and four days later was well enough to attend the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards.⁷ Filming the Malaysian island ambush scene, which featured a shootout and an explosion on a beach set, required twelve nights of shooting amid nightly heavy rainstorms, with RED rainstorm signals issued on certain nights; by itself, the explosion took three to four hours to capture on film.⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026