Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows Shop News Showtimes

To Be Number One

1991 2h 29m Action List
Tomatometer 0 Reviews 45% Popcornmeter 50+ Ratings
A peasant named Ho (Lui Leung-Wai) travels to Hong Kong from mainland China looking to succeed in the criminal underworld. The streets already run rampant with Triad gangs, so Ho makes a deal with Boss Kun (Kent Cheng). If he can seize control of the district of Sham Shui Po from Kun's rivals, he will be put in charge of it. Ho accomplishes this feat violently, and his cold-blooded ruthlessness helps him rise up through the syndicate's ranks. Unfortunately, his vices threaten to bring him down.

Audience Reviews

View All (2) audience reviews
Audience Member Back in the end-1980s/early-1990s last century, in the era of pre-1997, everyone in the HK Cinema was scrambling for making biopics. "To Be Number One" was such a hype back then as the pioneer of the genre. The film was in fact so disjointed & broken in narrative between scenes (not recalling if this was because a lot of edition had been done due to the alluding of the characters in real life) which, anyway, was one of the common features of HK Cinema even in its prime time. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member Pretty much standard stuff from back in the day. And in this case that's a good thing. Has some epic aspiratons which Ray Liu sadly ain't the actor to live up to. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Read all reviews
To Be Number One

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Cast & Crew

Show Less Cast & Crew Show More Cast & Crew
View All To Be Number One photos

To Be Number One

To Be Number One (1991) To Be Number One (1991) To Be Number One (1991) To Be Number One (1991) View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis A peasant named Ho (Lui Leung-Wai) travels to Hong Kong from mainland China looking to succeed in the criminal underworld. The streets already run rampant with Triad gangs, so Ho makes a deal with Boss Kun (Kent Cheng). If he can seize control of the district of Sham Shui Po from Kun's rivals, he will be put in charge of it. Ho accomplishes this feat violently, and his cold-blooded ruthlessness helps him rise up through the syndicate's ranks. Unfortunately, his vices threaten to bring him down.
Director
Man Kit Poon
Genre
Action
Original Language
Chinese
Runtime
2h 29m