General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Young and Dangerous

Young and Dangerous (古惑仔之人在江湖) is a 1996 Hong Kong triad action-drama directed and photographed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung, adapted from Cowman's comic Teddy Boy, that portrays gangsters as glamorous young heroes and launched one of the defining Hong Kong film series of the 1990s.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	古惑仔之人在江湖 (Gu huo zi zhi ren zai jiang hu)
Release	25 January 1996, Hong Kong; Cantonese language³
Director and cinematographer	Andrew Lau Wai-keung¹
Screenwriter and producer	Manfred Wong; executive producer Wong Jing; production company Jing's Production¹
Source	The comic Teddy Boy (古惑仔) by Cowman (Man Kai-ming) and Dickey Yau, running since 1992¹
Lead cast	Ekin Cheng (Chan Ho-nam), Jordan Chan (Chicken), Gigi Lai, Francis Ng (Ugly Kwan), Ng Chi-hung, Jerry Lamb¹
Box office	More than HK$21 million for the first film, against low expectations⁴
Franchise	Six official films between 1996 and 2000, plus a 1998 prequel and spin-offs⁵

Spoilers

Story and characters

The film follows five young men, friends since childhood, who work as foot soldiers for the Hung Hing triad under the fatherly boss Brother Bee (Ng Chi-hung).⁶^•⁷ Chan Ho-nam (Ekin Cheng) and his irresponsible best friend Chicken (Jordan Chan) rise in esteem after killing a rival, but the power-hungry branch leader Ugly Kwan (Francis Ng) frames Chan, drives a wedge between him and Chicken, and usurps the leadership of the society from its head Chiang Tin-sung (Simon Yam), leaving the friends on the run and out for revenge.⁸^•⁴

The script adapts the comic's "Ugly Kwan" arc, in which Ugly Kwan schemes to depose the gang leader and replace him.⁴ Gigi Lai plays Smartie, the sister of another gangster and Chan's love interest, in comic set-pieces that occupy much of the first half before the story turns into dark melodrama.⁸ Reviewers noted that the film's criminal world is largely one of street fights, karaoke bars, nightclubs and standing by one's friends; drug dealing, racketeering and grand theft barely enter the picture.⁶

Franchise and legacy

The mainline series ran to six official films between 1996 and 2000, alongside a prequel and numerous spin-offs and imitations.⁵^•⁶ The second film, Young and Dangerous 2 (1996), extended the story to Macau and Taiwan, and the third, Young and Dangerous 3 (1996), moved to the Golden Harvest studio and followed the young gangsters inheriting the jianghu (the triad underworld's code-bound social world of honor and rivalries) estate of their elders.¹² The fourth film in the series (1997) received a Category III rating in Hong Kong for foul language.¹³ Andrew Lau directed and photographed the later installments as well: 97 Gu Huo Zi: Zhan Wu Bu Sheng (1997), 98 Gu Huo Zi: Long Zheng Hu Dou (1998), Sheng Zhe Wei Wang (2000), and the prequel Xin Gu Huo Zi: Shao Nian Ji Dou Pian (1998).⁹

The series revitalized the heroic bloodshed genre of the 1980s, associated with John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, by recasting it with hip young stars, and it set a trend by portraying gangsters as young heroes.¹⁴^•¹ Its influence persisted long after 2000: Ekin Cheng and Jordan Chan reunited for the 2010 triad comedy Once a Gangster;⁶ a reboot, Young and Dangerous: Reloaded (2013), directed by Daniel Chan Yee-hang, returned to familiar plots in contemporary Hong Kong;¹⁵ and the 2018 action film Golden Job reunited series stars Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Michael Tse, Jerry Lamb and Chin Ka-lok, with a cameo by Andrew Lau and the original theme song.¹⁶ The first film was screened at the Hong Kong Film Archive in 2023 with a post-screening talk by Manfred Wong, Cowman and chief cartoonist Lun Yu-kwok.¹

Production and origins

The comic behind the film began in 1992, when the cartoonist Man Kai-ming, known as Cowman, set up his own publishing house with his apprentices and debuted the Teddy Boy series, which follows the rivalries between the triad leader Chan Ho-nam and his enemies and opened up the triad genre in Hong Kong comics.¹ Manfred Wong, a film veteran and comic fan, saw the series' potential and persuaded Wong Jing to produce an adaptation with Andrew Lau as director.¹ Lau and Wong had formed the production company Best Partner with Wong Jing in 1995, and the same partnership released the second and third films in 1996.⁹

Casting was central to the film's effect. Lau described his triad members as "five handsome boys, young and beautiful and smart", a sharp contrast with the weather-beaten gangsters of earlier Hong Kong films.⁵ Ekin Cheng, then an idol singer, played Chan Ho-nam, a role that became iconic in his career; the pop trio Wind Sea Fire and Jerry Lamb played his men.¹ Lau shot the film largely with a handheld camera, a style that gave it a sense of immediacy and locality, and the production worked on a low budget with a hurried schedule.⁶^•⁷

Reception and controversy

Released when expectations were low, the first film took in more than HK$21 million, and the same cast immediately shot the second and third installments in the same year, starting a years-long "gu huo zi film" craze and a new wave of Hong Kong comic adaptations.⁴ The commercial context mattered: in 1996 the Hong Kong box office plunged 30 percent and the city's four cinema chains went bust, making the series' success stand out in a contracting industry.¹⁰ The South China Morning Post critic Paul Fonoroff wrote in 2000 that the films were "the most sustained series to emerge in Hong Kong cinema since the industry spiralled into a depression in the mid-1990s".⁵

The film also drew criticism in Hong Kong for its moral framing. Commentators argued that it glamorized triad life by presenting young gangsters as loyal, righteous heroes who hurt only those who deserved it, and scholars have linked the controversy to a real-world climate in which triads were recruiting new members from public schools.⁶^•¹¹ Its themes of familial bonds, loyalty and distrust of the police have been read as expressions of pre-handover tension, since the film appeared in the mid-1990s as Hong Kong's sovereignty was about to pass from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released in the 1990s

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

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