This film starts with a little boy stealing rice from a convent kitchen-a little girl catches him but protects him. After that, she brings him food regularly until she gets adopted and leaves town. The boy and his best friend see a triad member bully another man and decide that's what they'll do when they grow up. They do grow up to be triad members(played by Alan Tang & Chow Yun Fat) and run a night-club. It's pretty obvious that Alan Tang is the star of this movie-his role is a bit flashier than Chow Yun Fat's. Fat plays the sweet but tough character very well though.

The triad is challenged by the wicked Mr. Kao, played by Yin Tse (Shaolin Soccer). Tse plays the bad guy so effortlessly, it's a pleasure to watch. Alan is sent to Macau to pick up weapons but soon finds it's a set-up by Kao. He proves himself by saving the arms dealer. They go out that night when both he & the arms dealer set their sights on the lounge singer (A Better Tomorrow's Emily Chu). When the dealer realizes Alan wants her, she's ordered by the dealer to show Alan a good time. But it seems that Alan sensed her discomfort, took pity on her and won't sleep with her. It's one of those 'they're bickering so much, they obviously like each other' scenes.

In the meantime, Chang (Fat) has met the little girl, Ka-Hsi, who helped him as a boy ( Pat Ha from On The Run Yuen Biao) she's now a teacher at the very same convent school. He knows she wouldn't approve of his background so he at first pretends he doesn't know her. But through a montage of very cute scenes of them going out and helping others; they fall in love. But she's going back to China and wants him to go with her; he doesn't know how to tell his brother of his plans to leave the triad.

But then Alan returns with the lounge singer at his side, they're planning to marry too. But when Chang tells him of his plans to go legit, Alan gets upset. He tells Chang if it were a choice between his brother or this woman, he'd choose his brother. He then throws the singer out! Chang packs and leaves with Ka-Hsi. Alan mope around a bit but then one of his men tells him the gossip is that he's in love with Chang! He gets back together with the singer after that. Then the plot thickens-Kao decides to cheat Alan out of the percentage he was promised for the weapons and when the other triad members follow Kao, Alan realizes he's at war. Kao threatens all that he loves so he decides to cut Chang & the singer out of his life. Chang and Ka-Hsi run a 7/11 type of place in the city and are warned to get out of town. Alan breaks it off with the singer but luckily for him, she doesn't listen and saves him when he's ambushed. Chang realizes he can't let his brother down and leaves Ka-Hsi to fight at his side.

The Flaming Brothers was a typical sort of mafia movie, though I'm not sure if calling them flaming wasn't adding to the vaguely homoerotic subtext thrown in. There were a couple of scenes where Alan was accused of being in love with Chang, first by one of his men, then by his girlfriend. I didn't really see it though- it was 2 men that grew up together, fought together and considered themselves brothers. Like I said before, Chow comes off as very sweet while Alan is cool and sauve. The performances by all were very good. I'd definitely recommend it.