# Where a Good Man Goes
**Where a Good Man Goes** (再見阿郎; *Joi gin a long*) is a 1999 Hong Kong crime drama directed by [Johnnie To](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnnie-to), starring Lau Ching-wan as a former triad boss who, after release from a Macau prison, takes rooms at a small hotel run by a widow (Ruby Wong) and gradually forms a family with her and her son.[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/) • [2](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes) It was produced by Milkyway Image, the company To founded with Wai Ka-fai in 1996, and was one of three To-directed features released in 1999 alongside *Running Out of Time* and *The Mission*.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-johnnie-to)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | 再見阿郎 (*Joi gin a long*; literally "Goodbye, Ah Long")[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/) • [5](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/wx/whereagoodman.html) |
| Release | May 6, 1999 (Hong Kong); Cantonese language[2](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes) |
| Director / producers | Johnnie To; producers Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) |
| Screenplay | Yau Nai-hoi with the Milkyway Creative Team[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) |
| Lead cast | Lau Ching-wan (Michael Cheung), Ruby Wong (Judy Lin), Lam Suet (Karl), Wayne Lai, Raymond Wong Ho-yin[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202682/) • [7](https://www.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/oeuvre/whereagoodmangoes/) |
| Setting | Macau, filmed on location there[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202682/) |
| Hong Kong box office | HK$383,647, ranking 85th for the year[8](https://kungfutube.info/24060) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Michael Cheung, a debt-collecting triad who once commanded respect as a "big brother", is released from a Macau prison and checks into the small International Hotel, run by Judy Lin, a widow raising a young son.[9](https://www.blu-ray.com/Where-a-Good-Man-Goes/416250/) • [2](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes) He resumes his harsh, brutal manner, trying to regain his position in the underworld and treating everyone, including the innkeeper, as a servant; he also seeks his ex-wife and the HK$2,000,000 she took from him.[2](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes) • [10](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/where-a-good-man-goes-93071/) The film opens with Michael thrashing a whole rank of taxi drivers who attack him, an incident that brings him to the attention of the local policeman Fat Karl (Lam Suet), who has a score to settle and pursues him through the rest of the story.[9](https://www.blu-ray.com/Where-a-Good-Man-Goes/416250/) • [11](https://www.screendaily.com/where-a-good-man-goes/401399.article)
Judy's inner strength and honesty work on the ex-con, and when her business, threatened by debts she cannot clear, comes under attack, Michael tries to come to her rescue.[2](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes) • [12](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/888/865/2152) The two adults, both guarded, slowly edge toward a relationship.[10](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/where-a-good-man-goes-93071/) The Busan festival program note describes Michael as rough and blunt on the outside but a man with a kind heart, and states that what he wants is not revenge but a family; unlike most heroes of Hong Kong films of the 1980s and 1990s, he settles down at the end, and in Macau rather than Hong Kong.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) The epilogue shows Michael released from a second, shorter stretch in jail and walking along the prison wall.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) • [11](https://www.screendaily.com/where-a-good-man-goes/401399.article)
## Production
The film was made by Milkyway Image (HK) Ltd., the production company Johnnie To established with Wai Ka-fai in 1996.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-johnnie-to) The credited crew includes cinematographer Cheng Siu-keung, editor Chan Chi-wai, production designer Jerome Fung, and composer Cacine Wong.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) Lau Ching-wan and Ruby Wong had appeared together one year earlier in *[Expect the Unexpected](https://www.edgepedia.org/expect-the-unexpected)*.[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/)
Most sources credit Johnnie To alone as director, but the review site lovehkfilm lists Patrick Yau Tat-Chi alongside To, and a widely read [Letterboxd](https://www.edgepedia.org/letterboxd) review argues that parts of the film feel ghost-directed by Yau, To's apprentice, who is credited as associate or assistant director.[13](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/where_a_good_man.htm) • [14](https://letterboxd.com/film/where-a-good-man-goes/) The runtime is also reported inconsistently: 88 minutes in the Busan and CinemaSiE records, 90 minutes on IMDb and in the [San Francisco Chronicle](https://www.edgepedia.org/san-francisco-chronicle) review, and 98 minutes at blu-ray.com and cityonfire.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) • [6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202682/) • [9](https://www.blu-ray.com/Where-a-Good-Man-Goes/416250/)
## Festivals and reception
The 1999 Hong Kong International Film Festival made Johnnie To Kei-Fung a Director in Focus with eleven of his films, and *Where a Good Man Goes* had its world premiere as the festival's opening film.[12](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/888/865/2152) It was also screened at the 1999 Pusan (now Busan) International Film Festival in the A Window on Asian Cinema section, and played at the Berlinale, where Screen's reviewer called it a delightfully off-beat crime comedy that constantly rings changes on Hong Kong crime movie clichés.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) • [11](https://www.screendaily.com/where-a-good-man-goes/401399.article) In the United States it opened at the Four Star Theatre in San Francisco in July 1999; the *San Francisco Chronicle* praised it as a smart, realistic street drama and noted Lau's effectiveness as a hot-headed loner used to giving orders.[15](https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Smart-Straight-Ahead-Man-Hong-Kong-drama-2919098.php)
Commercially the film was modest, earning HK$383,647 in Hong Kong, good for 85th place in the year's rankings.[8](https://kungfutube.info/24060) Critics have since described it as an often neglected entry in To's filmography.[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/) The lovehkfilm review called it flawed but engaging, praising the light pacing while faulting heavy dialogue, and noted that it delivers a rare event for a Milkyway production: a happy ending.[13](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/where_a_good_man.htm) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 70% Tomatometer from a single reviewed critic.[16](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/where_a_good_man_goes)
## Themes and place in To's career
The Festival des 3 Continents program describes the film as the one in which To's operative themes are most discernible, with characters placed at a critical point of their lives, at odds with or fearing the other, in a body of work where nothing is set in stone.[1](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/) The scholar Vicky Wong, writing in *Kinema* in 1999, read the film as organized around the theme of "home", understood as a traditional, patriarchal Chinese concept, and as telling the "grand narrative" that no evil escapes judgment and that a returning prodigal son will be accepted.[12](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/888/865/2152)
The Busan program note reads the ending as To's farewell to the tragic heroes of his earlier films: Michael rejects the pessimism and despair that haunted his predecessors, perseveres with forgiveness amid betrayal and conspiracy, and finds happiness rather than death.[3](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999) The title itself harks back to To's *All About Ah-Long*, another film about an immature man who finds a means of growing up.[13](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/where_a_good_man.htm) Within the director's 1999 output, one retrospective review calls it the weak link next to *Running Out of Time* and *The Mission*, the films through which To scored his international festival breakthrough that year.[17](https://www.sogoodreviews.com/reviews/whereagoodmangoes.htm) • [4](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-johnnie-to)
## References
1. [Where a good man goes, Festival des 3 Continents](https://www.3continents.com/en/film/where-a-good-man-goes/)
2. [Where a Good Man Goes, AsianWiki](https://asianwiki.com/Where_a_Good_Man_Goes)
3. [Where a Goodman Goes program note, Busan International Film Festival archive (1999)](https://www.biff.kr/ENG/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?kind=history&m_idx=1006&pyear=1999)
4. [Where to begin with Johnnie To, BFI (John Berra, 2022)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-johnnie-to)
5. [Where A Good Man Goes (1999), cityonfire.com](https://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/wx/whereagoodman.html)
6. [Where a Good Man Goes (1999), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202682/)
7. [Where a good man goes, CinemaSiE](https://www.cinemasie.com/en/fiche/oeuvre/whereagoodmangoes/)
8. [再見阿郎（1999）, KUNGFU TUBE](https://kungfutube.info/24060)
9. [Where a Good Man Goes (1999), Blu-ray.com](https://www.blu-ray.com/Where-a-Good-Man-Goes/416250/)
10. [Where a Good Man Goes synopsis, Showtimes](https://www.showtimes.com/movies/where-a-good-man-goes-93071/)
11. [Where A Good Man Goes review, Screen Daily (Phillip Bergson, 2000)](https://www.screendaily.com/where-a-good-man-goes/401399.article)
12. [Vicky Wong, "Reverting to Social Order by Containment: Johnnie To Kei-Fung's Where a Good Man Goes", Kinema, Fall 1999](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/888/865/2152)
13. [Where a Good Man Goes review, lovehkfilm.com (Kozo, 1999)](https://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/where_a_good_man.htm)
14. [Where a Good Man Goes, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/film/where-a-good-man-goes/)
15. [Bob Graham, "Smart, Straight-Ahead 'Man'", San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 1999](https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Smart-Straight-Ahead-Man-Hong-Kong-drama-2919098.php)
16. [Where a Good Man Goes, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/where_a_good_man_goes)
17. [Where A Good Man Goes review, sogoodreviews.com](https://www.sogoodreviews.com/reviews/whereagoodmangoes.htm)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1990s films › Crime dramas and gangster films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license