These comments are based on watching the English language US version of the film.
After his friend is assassinated policeman Andy Lau is surprised to discover that the killer's fingerprints match those of a convict who had apparently been executed recently... either something is wrong with the computer records or something is very wrong at the prison. As it doesn't appear to be the former he agrees to go undercover in the prison to uncover the truth. The prison is a brutal place and Andy has nobody to go to if he gets in trouble. In the prison we are introduced to other key characters; John 'Fatty' Liu, who keeps escaping to visit his son; Steve, who is marked for death because he accidentally killed a crime boss's brother and Lucas, the unofficial leader of the convicts.
I don't know if it was just the version of the film I watched but it certainly seemed rather lacking. The most obvious weakness is that once in prison Andy barely bothers to investigate; he asked a few questions about the late assassin, got in trouble with Lucas, then he was just another prisoner who gets caught up in a few scrapes. Jackie Chan is sold as the lead actor but in reality he plays a secondary character; we do get to see some of his trademark action, which is rather fun, at least. Sammo Hung provides some of the film's more amusing moments as John. There is a reasonable amount of action; the regular fight scenes are pretty good but the shootouts are a bit unrealistic to say the least. The acting looked good enough but the dub is pretty poor; none of the voices really went well with their characters making them hard to believe in. Overall I'd only recommend watching this version of the film if you are desperate to see it and can't find a Chinese version with subtitles.
