''Once a Gangster'' ( is a 2010 Hong Kong crime

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

Felix Chong Felix Chong Man-keung (, born December 27, 1968) is a Hong Kong screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. The ...

Plot

Gang leader Kerosene discovers that a new recruit is a talented cook and gives him the nickname Roast Pork. When Kerosene becomes the new don, he sets up a chain of restaurants under Roast Pork's control. Years later, Roast Pork's wife wants him to separate from the gang. Due to Kerosene's overwhelming debt, Roast Pork suggests passing the role of don to someone else and letting that person handle the debt. Scissors wants to become don, but the other gang members are against it because they know that his top thug Yan is a police informant. Kerosene wants Roast Pork to be the next don, but Roast Pork's wife is against it, so Roast Pork sets a fire on the sidewalk in front of a bank in order to be arrested and miss the pending election, but other gang members take responsibility for the action and enable Roast Pork to escape. Lady Pearl, granddaughter of the gang's founder Iron Bodyguard, objects to Roast Pork's nomination as the next Don because the position was promised to her son Swallow by Uncle Tsa in return for Swallow serving a 20-year sentence for a gang killing he performed. Uncle Tsa suggests that the person who retrieves the gang's symbol, the Dragon Tail Baton, from the police should be made the next Don. Swallow is uninterested in the position and wants to go to college instead, but his interview with

Hong Kong University The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

is sabotaged by his faithful underlings and his mother, who needs him to remain in the gang so that she has a source for her various drug habits. Roast Pork pays to have fake Dragon Tail Batons made out of the wood from an antique chair. The items switch hands many times between warring groups of gang members and ultimately Roast Pork and Swallow each arrive at the gang's headquarters with their own Dragon Tail Baton. Uncle Tsa can't remember which one is real, so the two contenders battle for the position of don, shooting and killing each other. Scissors arrives with his own Dragon Tail Baton and is made the new don. After Scissors leaves, Roast Pork and Swallow reveal to Pearl that they faked their deaths. Yan and the police arrest Scissors, the new don.

Cast

Ekin Cheng Ekin Cheng Yee Kin (born 4 October 1967) is a Hong Kong actor and singer. Early in his career, he used the name Dior as a first name (because that was what it sounded like when his younger sister tried to call him Second Brother ()). He has als ...

as Swallow *

Jordan Chan Jordan Chan Siu-Chun (born 8 July 1967) is a Hong Kong actor, singer and dancer, known for starring in the ''Young and Dangerous'' film series and for his role in the 1998 TV adaptation of Louis Cha's novel, '' The Duke of Mount Deer''. In ...

as Roast Pork * Alex Fong as Kerosene *

Michelle Ye Michelle Ye or Ye Xuan (born 14 February 1980) is a Chinese actress and producer. She is best known for her roles in ''Eternal Happiness'', ''Triumph in the Skies'', and ''Lost in the Chamber of Love''. Her most notable role was in the 2009 fi ...

as Nancy * Candice Yu as Lady Pearl *

Wilfred Lau Wilfred Lau Ho-Lung is a Hong Kong singer and actor. He is also known as "師兄" (C-Hing, Senpai) in the entertainment industry because he was the winner of the 16th annual New Talent Singing Awards International Finals in 1997, despite not ac ...

as Yan * Conroy Chan as Scissors

Release

The film was released in Hong Kong on 20 May 2010.

References

External links

* * * *
Once a Gangster
' at the

Hong Kong Cinemagic Hong Kong Cinemagic, sometimes referred to as HKCinemagic, was a bilingual ( French and English) website providing a repository for information about Chinese language films from Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, and the people who created them. The we ...

2010 crime comedy films Hong Kong crime comedy films Triad films 2010s Cantonese-language films 2010 films Films directed by Felix Chong Media Asia films Films set in Hong Kong Films shot in Hong Kong Hong Kong gangster films 2010s Hong Kong films {{comedy-crime-film-stub