A Better Tomorrow (1986)

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

7/10

Starring

Ti Lung

Leslie Cheung

Chow Yun-fat

Directed by John Woo

This movie does not spare bullets. It is action packed and as you would expect in a John Woo movie, the action was dialed up to the max.

This movie has a hypnotic power that holds your gaze, making it hard for you to look away. Even the start when everything seems too rosy and you suspect things were going to turn, its screenplay is so crafted that even then you are engaged.

A Better Tomorrow was the movie that brought Chow Yun-fat to the public eye. His performance in this movie is flawless. When he was to play the man on top of his game with little care for the world he was magnificent. When he turned ruthless he was terrific and he had to even play a cripple who was down on his luck, even then he was fun to watch.

Ti Lung was the lead in this movie, but yet still Yun-fat’s character was the one that went through some dramatic changes in his character’s life. These changes required him to pull out some terrific performances to pass on the message and make you get sucked into the movie.

The movie is about a criminal organization who have their hands in some big money. They deal in a lot of crime related things and counterfeiting is one of it. Ho (Ti Lung) is one of their top men. He with his partner Mark (Chow Yun-fat) go about swindling people off their real money for the counterfeit.

We get to know Ho more, we meet his brother Kit who is on his way to become an officer (he does not know what Sung does). We also meet Ho’s father and soon to be sister-in-law.

One of the deals Ho was supposed to get done did not go so well and Mark was not with him. Ho gets arrested. The other party involved, then attacked Ho’s home in revenge and that resulted in a tragedy.

Ho goes to jail and his brother holds a grudge. Mark went rouge which resulted in him being crippled.

Three years after, Ho is out and wants nothing to do with the business no more, but he still has to deal with the people he left behind. His brother is hell bent on bringing Ho and his organization down. Mark is tired of being a nobody and wants Ho and him to get back into the game. Lastly, the members of the organization also have plans which has to do with Ho.

Ho is not torn between all these players and has to find a way to deal with everything before it all blows up.

The movie was both a critical and commercial success and I will advise you go see it.