Film

Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong

Name: Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Released: 2021
Cast: Louis Koo, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Francis Ng Chun-yu, Gordon Lam Ka-tung, Keung Ho-man

Crime

A 2021 Hong Kong crime thriller set in 1973, depicting the corruption that sparked the creation of the ICAC. It's a stylish, violent portrait of a city where police and criminals were indistinguishable, with the British pulling strings behind closed doors. Gritty and ambitious, uneven in execution, for viewers drawn to historical crime drama.

TMDb rating

2.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a crime saga built on historical institutional rot, where cops and gangsters share the same dirty ledger, and you enjoy the slow-burn machinery of corruption more than shootouts.

Skip it if you came for the gunfights, because the action arrives in bursts and the middle stretches on talk, deals and scheming that can feel slow and wordy.

What it asks of you: Roughly 106 minutes of close attention, a grimy, sober tone with little comic relief, and patience to track who owes whom.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Z1969

Both films use crime and corruption as a lens to examine how state power corrupts when not constrained—the British in 1973 Hong Kong mirrors the regime in Z, with violence as the system's answer to accountability.

Costa-Gavras's political thriller about state corruption and a regime's desperate cover-up uses the police procedural as a weapon against authoritarianism. Taut, propulsive, and morally urgent in ways that feel shockingly current.

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Hard Boiled1992

John Woo's final Hong Kong film before Hollywood: a cop and a triad enforcer team up against corruption in a film of almost abstract violence and loyalty. The hallway shootout is legendary for a reason.

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Jackie Chan's breakthrough showcases his physicality and charm while exploring police corruption and justice. The action is inventive and genuinely funny, grounded in real danger and stunts.

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Temptation of a Monk1993

Both examine systems of power—secular and spiritual—in historical Hong Kong and China, exploring how individuals are corrupted or destroyed when caught between competing authorities.

Visually sumptuous and baroque, this historical drama about a Buddhist monk navigates power, faith, and compromise with painterly elegance. It's meditative where Once Upon a Time is brutal, offering a completely different way to examine corruption and human weakness.

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But It's a Holocaust documentary of extraordinary gravity—not for entertainment, and emotionally exhausting. Many viewers will find it almost unbearable to complete.