It's a redundancy to say it. Chow Yun Fat is one of icons of the Hong Kong Cinema before the Handover (the accorded devolution of the famous Britannic colony to the Chinese people in 1997). He worked intensely in TV and in the silver screen at the early years of the 1980s but the fame seemed to evade him. It was "A better tomorrow" directed by John Woo in 1986 the film that finally did the trick for him. The Story of Woo Viet is a rare film of 1981. There is no fancy gun-play in it, no choreography with guns or with martial arts. It is a harsh movie centered in a Vietnamese refugee (Chow Yun Fat), that after a hazardous escape in a precarious boat full of illegal immigrants from Vietnam, arrives to Hong Kong looking for a chance to reach the United States. But things go awry and during an scale in Manila (Phylipines), a criminal gang kidnaps his newfound girlfriend with the intent of exploiting her as a prostitute. What follows is the desperate intent of Woo Viet to rescue his lover. The two women in the movie are also well known in the Hong Kong Cinema. Cherie Chung Chor Hung plays the love interest of Chow Yun Fat. She also was a relatively obscure actress in 1981. Soon, this situation was to change and Cherie was become one of the brightest stars until her premature retirement in 1991 due to her change of profession (she married and became a full time housewife). The other woman in the story was Cora Miao, an interesting and serious actress who was reunited with Crerie Chung and Chow Yun Fat in the Shaw Brothers film "Women" (1985) and previously, only with the prolific Chow in the drama also produced by the Shaw Brothers, "Love in a Fallen City" (1984). At the helm of the Story of Woo Viet was Ann Hui On Wah a very renowned director in the Honk Kong and Chinese Cinema. Her most recent work was "The Golden Era" (2014) the chronicle of the brief and tragic life of the writer Xiao Hong. In conclusion, the Story of Woo Viet is a good drama. And for fans of the stars working on it is a "must see". Pity, the DVD edition I saw was very old and the source material was poor.