This is based on true events that happened in America. You may look at it, as either glorifying violence to a degree or making immigrants look bad, but that would be beside the point. I don't believe this to be a propaganda either way. I do believe that the story is interesting and while it probably is heighten for movie purposes it deserved to be told in a way like this.

Acting is OK, the setting is decent and the action scenes deliver mostly (though they are not too heightened/fancy). There still is blood, not many women involved (other than to look pretty) and everything else you'd expect (for better or worse) from a B-movie, even without it being based on true life.

This is a film about the war between two gangs: The Green Dragons and the White Tigers. It is told through the view of the Green Dragons. Paul Wong (Harry Shum Jr.) is an intellectual businessman leader of the group, almost worshipped as a god. He brings in illegal's because ir is better to be a slave in America than a free man in China. Sonny (Justin Cong) is a member of the Green Dragons and our protagonist as he doesn't like the more violent aspects of the gang.

The film jumps from 1983 with a Reagan voice over on how wonderful immigrants are to 1989 when the view has changed. The Chinese gangs have branched out into a large crime syndicate and drugs from Hong Kong. Only Ray Liotta can stop them. The film was an interesting take on the American Dream and for better or worse creates turns into an illegal or undocumented scare film with the end commentary. The repeated voice over during the end parking garage scene was a poor selection and really didn't keep with the overall theme of the film unless Asian on Asian crime is okay, but heaven help you if you kill a white man was the main theme, which seemed more of a sidebar during the feature. In that regard the script needed tightening, considering that it was filled with truisms and decent lines.

Good Martin Scorsese soundtrack. Decent crime drama.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, brief scenes of sex, rape, and nudity.

For a movie I knew nothing about and had only read a generic one-sentence description, this film turned out to be a good movie!

The story is entertaining and fascinating, the violence is story driven and not unnecessarily used but while the movie did start out entertaining, it did start to lose it's way after the halfway point.

There is very little action, it's mostly drama driven, but there is a graphic torture scene. It's well acted mostly by unknowns (well to me anyway) with the only people I knew were Harry Shum Jr (Glee) and Ray Liotta (Goodfellas). There is twist at the end and because it's based on a true story, there are some details on where some the characters are now.

This is a film that is okay to watch once but I don't see myself watching it again.