Lau essentially turns the traditional story on its head by dispensing with the usual anti-hero chic: we want the cop and his faux partners to win. After a raging gun battle, a kidnapping and the rescue of a little girl, they throw in with Officer Tsui ( Leo Ku) to stop the second gang. Big F and his boys may be criminals but they have standards. Another gang of thieves, far more brutal and equipped with real weapons, is carrying out the same plan. When they finally get to the robbery on a winding, desolate stretch of road, it turns out Big F’s idea isn’t all that original. The gang has a knotty history (that’s never truly elucidated) and each has his personality tic, but at the core they’re decent guys just trying to make a living. It’s in these planning-the-perfect-crime montages that writer-director Lau lays the brotherhood groundwork demanded of the cops-and-robbers genre. Ng ( Young and Dangerous, Exiled) is in classic Ng form Tam ( As the Light Goes Out) is particularly energetic as the vain, handsome member of the fraternity and Yam ( Sara, Sparrow) jettisons his elder statesman dignity for a spell, and it looks good on him.

Up to this point Two Thumbs Up’s narrative exists simply in service to Ng, Yam et al in building the nearly incompetent gang’s dynamic, which for the most part is amusing to watch. While this is happening, a vaguely futuristic Hong Kong is dealing with a decimating plague stemming from a cockroach farm explosion. Plucking a decrepit minibus from the junkyard, the gang dresses it up as a police Emergency Unit van, dress themselves up as cops and head off to the wilds of the New Territories to get rich.

The catch? The corpses are stuffed with laundered cash. Big F tells the gang of his plan to rob delivery vans returning from China carrying corpses to be buried. The purple-favoring Johnny T ( Patrick Tam, and yes, more hair) is hairdressing in a back alley and nearsighted East L ( Mark Cheng) is working as a mechanic of some sort. Crazy B ( Simon Yam, himself in possession of a kickin’ demi-afro) is working at a bowling hall and evidently living above the lanes. Upon his return home, he looks up the scattered members of his old crew. We start in Malaysia with petty but proud Hong Kong thief Lucifer, or Big F ( Francis Ng, sporting one of the most spectacular mullets of all time), getting out of prison.

Two thumbs up