Man on the Brink

Impatient with low-level police work, rookie cop Chui (Eddie Chen) recklessly accepts his superior’s offer to go undercover. With few ties and an ambiguous moral compass that soon starts to spin out of control, his life outside the underworld begins to crumble.

Following the success of Cops and Robbers (1979), Alex Cheung’s Man on the Brink further redefined the Hong Kong crime sub-genre. While indebted to New Hollywood staples such as Sidney Lumet’s Serpico (1973), this Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor Golden Horse Award winner unleashed a new appetite for undercover cop mayhem, prefiguring classics such as the Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002-2003) with its jaw-dropping synthesis of urban grit, realistic drama and high stakes, captured with evocative hand-held, on-location camerawork. A missing link – if not a turning point – in Hong Kong action cinema, ready to be rediscovered.

directed by: Alex Cheung
starring: Eddie Chen, Ga Lun, Kam Hing Yin, Ada Fung
1981 / 100 min / 1.85:1 / Cantonese DTS-HD MA 2.0

Additional info:

• Region A Blu-ray
• Interview with director Alex Cheung (2022, 39 minutes)
• Commentary with Director Alex Cheung and Assistant Director Teddy Chan (2022, 100 minutes)
• Q&A Post Screening Talk (2019, 72 minutes)
• 8mm Shorts:
• -Man on the Brink Making Of (1981, 14 minutes)
• -C.I.D. Making Of (1976, 1 minute)
• -Young Teddy & Alex Cheung (1973, 1 minute)
• -"Come Together" Music Video (1973, 3 minutes)
• Booklet: New writing by John Charles, Archival Photos
• English subtitles