The Chinese film Shanghai Triad is about a 14 year old boy named Tang Shuisheng who is recruited by his uncle Liu to work as a servant for a triad boss that is also named Tang. Prior to meeting his new boss Tang is taken to a warehouse where two rivals gangs are to make a drug deal. The drug deals goes wrong and it leaves one of the rival gang members were killed during the course of action. After being in the warehouse Tang is assigned to serve his triad bosses girlfriend Jinbao.
In the movie Jinbao makes fun of tang for being less fortunate and she calls him the term country bumpkin. Jinbao is a sassy character who is not afraid to say what she wants. As the movie progresses it is discovered that Jinbao is having a secret relationship with triad boss Tang’s second man Song. The rival triad boss Tang is Fat Yu. The two bosses gangs end up fighting in the movie leaving the young servant’s uncle dead. After this event occurred triad boss tang takes a small entourage of his people to a peasant island. On the island Jinbao becomes friends with a peasant woman named Cuihau. Tang Shusheng becomes friends with Cuihau daughter Ajiao.
She also tells the young servant that she was from where he was. She gives him silver coins and tells him to use it to buy a shop to escape the poverty On the final night of the Triad boss and his men being on the island Song comes to the island. The triad boss lets Song know that he knows that he knows about him having an affair with Jinbao and that he was trying to help rival triad bosses get rid of him so he could be the boss. Triad boss tang kills song by burying him alive.
After Song was taken away Jinbao was informed that she too would be killed for her betrayal of Tang. Tang offers her one final wish before she is killed and she asked for him not to kill Cuihau and Ajiao. He tells her that he already killed Cuihau for knowing too much and Ajiao will replace her when she is older. Before being killed the servant Tang attempts to save Jinbao but is held and beaten. The movie ends with the servant tang being hung from the sail of the Triad bosses boat and the coins that were given to him falling out of his pockets into the water. The theme of this movie is gang violence. There was a lot of violence that caused a lot of deaths in the movie. In conclusion this was not one of my favorite movies to watch in this class. Although I like violence in movies I think that this movie was kind of boring.