# Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 (一个字头的诞生)
**Too Many Ways to Be No. 1** (一个字头的诞生) is a 1997 Hong Kong action comedy directed by Wai Ka-fai (韦家辉) that follows a small-time triad through two diverging versions of his life after a fortune teller predicts a fateful choice. Produced by [Johnnie To](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnnie-to), it was the debut film of Milkyway Image, the production company Wai and To co-founded in 1996, and it established the fatalistic, formally experimental style for which the company became known.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf) • [2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 一个字头的诞生 (literally "An Alphabet's Birth")[3](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/st/toomanyways.html) |
| Director / writers | Wai Ka-fai; screenplay by Wai, Szeto Kam-yuen, and Matt Chow; produced by Johnnie To[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf) • [3](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/st/toomanyways.html) |
| Release | 14 March 1997, Hong Kong; 90 minutes, color, in Cantonese and Mandarin[4](https://baike.so.com/doc/4311619-4515634.html) • [2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) |
| Cast | Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng, Carman Lee, Elvis Tsui, Ruby Wong, Cheung Tat-ming[3](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/st/toomanyways.html) |
| Hong Kong box office | HK$3,154,303[4](https://baike.so.com/doc/4311619-4515634.html) |
| Awards | Nominated for Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Film Score at the 1997 Hong Kong Film Awards; Film of Merit from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society; 1998 Golden Bauhinia Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, and Top 10 Chinese Films[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) |
| Significance | Milkyway Image's founding film; its bifurcated narrative and wide-angle visual style set the company's signature approach[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Wong Ah-kau (黄阿狗), played by Lau Ching-wan, is a 32-year-old petty triad who visits a fortune teller and is told he stands at a life-defining crossroads: fortune or ruin. The film presents the outcome of each path.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107)
In the first version, Ah-kau joins a gang smuggling stolen cars to [Guangdong](https://www.edgepedia.org/guangdong) in mainland China. The crew is disorganized and incompetent; a robbery of an armored money truck fails, and everyone dies far from home.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) • [10](https://app2.atmovies.com.tw/film/fUcmb7073947) In the second version, he goes to Taiwan with his friend Chan Siu-mau (陈小猫, played by Francis Ng) to carry out a hit. After repeated escapes from death and much bloodshed, Ah-kau rises to head his own triad, a nominally happy ending that still leaves him battered and expressionless.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) • [5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) The film then returns to the initial moment of choice, leaving the final outcome open.[5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/)
The fortune teller's line frames the theme: success or failure depends on whether a man can find out who he really is and what kind of person he wants to be.[5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) Wai himself described the film as being about choice: "Life is full of choices, some important, some not. Along these lines, things seem absurd."[6](https://www.subwaycinema.com/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1)
## Production and Milkyway Image's debut
Wai Ka-fai, born in Hong Kong in 1962, had worked in television at TVB and ATV before moving into film screenwriting and directing his first feature, *Peace Hotel* (1995), at the invitation of [Chow Yun-fat](https://www.edgepedia.org/chow-yun-fat). In 1996 he co-founded Milkyway Image (Hong Kong) Limited with Johnnie To, his long-time production partner, and directed the company's debut with *Too Many Ways to Be No. 1*, co-written with Matt Chow and Szeto Kam-yuen.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf)
According to an interview Wai gave for the book *Milkyway Image, Beyond Imagination*, the film began as a sudden idea in his head, at first existing only as a line of text about someone founding a triad. During production, Wai and To, both young directors with creative freedom, kept adding improvised ideas and let the story drift toward the unorthodox; Wai recalled that with so many directors making films, they deliberately wanted their work to be a little different.[5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) • [7](https://www.thenewslens.com/column/hk-filmandtv/177720)
The film appeared amid the *Young and Dangerous* craze, a glamorized comic-book triad series that spawned sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and imitations through 1996. Subway Cinema notes that *Too Many Ways to Be No. 1* was initially taken as a response to that phenomenon, but Wai had in fact been developing it for several years beforehand; in his film, being a gangster is just a job, and there are no heroes.[6](https://www.subwaycinema.com/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1)
## Style and narrative structure
The film's structure shows the same events branching into different outcomes depending on small decisions, a repeating narrative that Chinese criticism has compared to the forking paths of [Jorge Luis Borges](https://www.edgepedia.org/jorge-luis-borges). The Phoenix Entertainment retrospective notes that *Run Lola Run*, often credited with popularizing this structure, completed the same challenge two years later.[5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) IMDb's plot summary likewise identifies inspiration from [Krzysztof Kieślowski](https://www.edgepedia.org/krzysztof-kieslowski) and [Quentin Tarantino](https://www.edgepedia.org/quentin-tarantino), and a Letterboxd reviewer draws the comparison to Kieślowski's *Blind Chance* directly.[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120541/plotsummary/) • [9](https://embed.letterboxd.com/film/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1/)
Visually, the film relies heavily on wide-angle and 9.8mm fisheye lenses with handheld cameras, long takes, and interlocking blue and dark-red tones, so that characters seem like out-of-focus clowns in the swaying frame.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) • [5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) The Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute describes the result as an anarchic, genre-defying voice, with Wai's idea that "character determines choice, and choice shapes fate" producing a chaotic anarchy that serves as a distinctive footnote to pre-handover Hong Kong.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) Subway Cinema describes the film as structured like a religion, a Buddhist universe of branching paths in which characters are reincarnated again and again, and notes Wai's debt to [Takeshi Kitano](https://www.edgepedia.org/takeshi-kitano).[6](https://www.subwaycinema.com/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1)
## Reception
Commercially the film failed: it earned about HK$3 million at the Hong Kong box office, a poor return that the News Lens attributes to its unconventionality at a time when Hong Kong film output was already declining in 1996 and 1997.[4](https://baike.so.com/doc/4311619-4515634.html) • [7](https://www.thenewslens.com/column/hk-filmandtv/177720) Critically, however, it was recognized: nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards for screenplay, cinematography, and original score, a Film of Merit from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society, and Golden Bauhinia Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, and a Top 10 Chinese Films placement.[2](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107) Subway Cinema reports that numerous Hong Kong critics deemed it the most important film of 1997.[6](https://www.subwaycinema.com/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1)
The film has also been read as political commentary. IMDb's summary calls it a highly evaluated commentary on Hong Kong's 1997 transition to the People's Republic of China,[8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120541/plotsummary/) and the Phoenix retrospective describes it as a comic allegory of Hong Kong's 1997 political choice, made as Hong Kongers faced the handover with anxiety.[5](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/) Its reputation has grown with time: the Hong Kong Film Archive's filmmaker profile records that the film's multiple-endings structure was a brand-new attempt to subvert the narrative tradition of Hong Kong gangster cinema, and that Wai's subsequent works *[The Odd One Dies](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-odd-one-dies)* (1997) and *The Longest Nite* (1998) built on it to redefine the genre and establish Milkyway Image's style.[1](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf)
## References
1. [WAI Ka-fai, Hong Kong Filmmakers Search, Hong Kong Film Archive](https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/documents/6.-Research-and-Publication/06-02-Filmmakers-Search/English/WAI-Ka-fai_e.pdf)
2. [一個字頭的誕生 program page, Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI)](https://www.tfai.org.tw/zh/program/movieDetail/2c968082978c955401981194dceb0107)
3. [Too Many Ways To Be Number One, cityonfire.com](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/st/toomanyways.html)
4. [一个字头的诞生, 360百科](https://baike.so.com/doc/4311619-4515634.html)
5. [百部穿影黑帮篇08：《一个字头的诞生》, 凤凰网娱乐](https://ent.ifeng.com/movie/baibuchuanying/special/zitoudansheng/)
6. [Too Many Ways To Be No. 1, Subway Cinema](https://www.subwaycinema.com/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1)
7. [港片小酌《一個字頭的誕生》：以破格和鮮明定義作者之必要, The News Lens](https://www.thenewslens.com/column/hk-filmandtv/177720)
8. [Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 (1997) Plot, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120541/plotsummary/)
9. [Too Many Ways to Be No. 1 (1997), Letterboxd](https://embed.letterboxd.com/film/too-many-ways-to-be-no-1/)
10. [一個字頭的誕生 TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO.1, 開眼電影網](https://app2.atmovies.com.tw/film/fUcmb7073947)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Black comedy and satire films › Released 1939 to 1997*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license