What Price Honesty? (1981)

Pai Piao, Danny Lee and Sun Chien played three friends who just graduated from a police academy. They became constables in a little town, where the whole regiment was corrupted.

Like freshly graduated police, they held ideal principles, trying to be honest and just; but of course they could not fight against the whole regiment. Other constables hated them - including their boss, the magistrate and the prison guards' chief; on the other hand, the civilians hated them as well - because they had seen how the constables used to squeeze them for money. In the civilians' eyes, honest constables impossibly existed.

L-R : Danny Lee, Pai Piao, Sun Chien

One day they were called to help their fellows - who were surrounding a big bandit (Lo Lieh) in a ruined temple. Danny Lee died in this incident, because their boss refused to help them. The three gambled with their life to free a hostage, but although Danny Lee died, even the ex-hostage didn't think much about the sacrifice. They did catch the bandit, but the magistrate and the constables' chief received bribes and sentenced him to three months only.

Pai Piao was so bitter with the whole thing that after that he punished severely the criminals he caught before sending them to jail (i.e.beating them). His colleagues were also angry because the bribe money they received became less and less. The constables' chief  held Sun Chien's family and coerced him to frame Pai Piao. Pai Piao was sent to jail.

Then came the news that an imperial envoy would visit the little town. Pai Piao's wife visited her husband in jail and told him her plan to plead the case to the envoy. Sadly the conversation was overheard and the corrupted officers killed Pai Piao's wife. This did not end here, the magistrate and the constables' chief killed the prisoners, in order to remove any proof that could be used against them in front of the imperial envoy.

But Pai Piao broke out of jail and held the magistrate as a hostage. But when the imperial envoy came, was he as honest as they had expected?

This movie ended tragically. It's a sad story where the good perishes with the bad, because they were outnumbered.