Triads, Yardies & Onion Bhajees!

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Set in the multi-cultural London criminal underworld, Mad Dave (Dave Courtney) arranges a meeting with some members of the Asian 'Holy Smokes' gang, to mastermind a robbery at Heathrow Airport, behind the back of their leader Chacha (Jass Bassi.) Everything, apart from a security guard being killed, goes to plan...but the two more reckless members of the group are also caught up in a plan to distribute cocaine in onion bahjees, that has resulted in the death of the brother of Billy Chan (Peter Peralta), the leader of the Triads, who, of course, wants revenge, leaving Jaz (Ashwin Kumar Joshi), the level headed member of the group, in a difficult situation. Chacha's right hand man, Singh (Manish Patel, also directing), comes looking for answers, when Jaz's lover, the sister of the leader of the Yardies, gets caught up in it all.

This, somewhat low budget, film, has the look of a student production all over it (though what was to be gained from filming it in grainy black and white remains unknown!) I've only just found out how long it's been held back for, which should give some indication of how people wanted it brushed under the carpet. It's an ambitious looking project, aiming for a mix of hard hitting slice of gangster life and more light hearted stuff. Sadly, all the constraints stop it reaching it's full potential, a shame since director/star Patel could go on to greater things if he got the right people behind him. **