Ten years ago, John Woo started a trend for films about Hong Kong's notorious Triads with his stylised gangland story A Better Tommorrow. Last year a new triad film series, Young and Dangerous, became a box-office hit. But a decade later, the triad stories are given a very different treatment to their predecessors.

The Young and Dangerous series - of which the third instalment hits the Rotterdam festival screens starting from Saturday - follows the progress of the young anti-heroes from their recruitment into the triad gangs in the playground, through early days learning the craft of crime, until they finally flex their muscles and wrest control away from their leaders.

The Young And Dangerous series offers a different, if equally compelling, vision of triad life to the classic films of the 80s. John Woo's vision of Jiang-hu - the seedy underworld which the triads inhabit - was classical in scope, harking back to legend. As the stories go, the original secret societies formulated a rigid code of honour for their members, in an attempt to impose some order on their world. Woo's characters generally attempt to abide by this code of honour amongst theives.

Not so Young and Dangerous' youthful criminals. The first part of the series sees the inexperienced gang members looking on as the hierarchichal structure of the Societies starts to look shaky. By Part Three, chaos has replaced order, as the youngsters start to run things in their own brash way.

The flashy, fast-paced films have so far proved a hit with the public, and rate among the most popular Cantonese-language releases of the year. Part one, which was made for the tiny sum of US$800,000 grossed US$2,900,281, and Part 2, US$2,593,192. Part Three grossed US$2,513,904. Word on the street is that Hongkong youth feel that the films are generally accurate, if overstated, versions of reality.

There may even be a social reason for their success. The Woo-era films fulfilled a need for "heroes" in the face of an unpredictable future under China. A decade later, Young and Dangerous picks up on one of the more worrying possible futures for Hong Kong after the 1997 handover: urban chaos.

Sales are handled by Hong Kong's Golden Harvest. Richard James Havis