A Better Tomorrow >> Review
As a big fan of Hong Kong action movies myself, it was with excited fervour that I opened this 2 disc special edition of John Woo’s classic “A Better Tomorrow”. Faced with the prospect of a disturbingly stimulating set of extra features, it was a struggle not to abundantly salivate as my excited paws ushered the first disc into the tray. First hurdle down and it was time to sit back and admire the wizardry of a legend in his prime. “A Better Tomorrow” was the film that forged the infamous Chow Yun-Fat/John Woo partnership - a unity that would dominate Asian action cinema for the ensuing decade. The duo essentially made careers for each other, both had a history of hideously mediocre proportions (Woo was stuck directing comedies and Yun-Fat in the world of television) and ABT was the film that effectively brought them both out of their creative slumps and steered them towards greatness.
Yun-Fat burning some of his leftover vacation money.
The screenplay is fairly simple and unashamedly pays subconscious homage to cop dramas of days gone by as well as borrowing the main vein of the narrative from 1967’s “Story of a Discharged Prisoner”. Ho is an ex-gangster trying to get on the straight and narrow, in attempt to make amends to his younger brother Kit, who blames Ho for their father’s death. But leaving the world of organized crime is never easy and under pressure from a number of old contacts, including his best friend Mark, Ho finds himself at the centre of a problem he can’t resolve. Faced with this paradox, he makes a few tough decisions which thankfully result in blistering action, some flashy explosions and a torrent of well conveyed emotional connections.
What really brings the film to life is a combination of the incredible performances delivered by the dramatis personae as a collective and the sheer pace and scale of the adrenaline fuelled action scenes - sequences which will leave even the most desensitized action buffs breathless. The on screen chemistry between Lung Ti, Leslie Cheung and Chow Yun-Fat is plain to see and even when the temperament of the film shifts from light-hearted and cheerful to dramatic and intense, there is no loss of character connection, on the contrary, the change of emotional disposition seems just to augment and further strengthen their performances.
The extra features available are not as exciting as I was first led to believe, it does not have as much extra content as you may expect from a release dubbed as the “Ultimate Edition”. But even though there’s not as much as anticipated, there’s still a couple of entertaining additions. Most notably is an enlightening documentary that is in essence, a short biography of Woo’s life – accompanied by various interview sections from the man himself, the feature entitled “Crossings” will no doubt have a few new nuggets of knowledge for the dedicated Woo fans among us. Aside from that, there’s only two short and fairly old interviews with Woo and Chow Yun-Fat together with the usual extra trailers etc, which provide a little diversion but don’t seem to offer anything significantly entertaining. The inclination would provoke me to call this the “Adequate Edition”.
“A Better Tomorrow” is an outstanding film, it singularly redefined Hong Kong cinema and introduced us to the “all guns blazing” gangster approach which has seeped into every corner of international action cinema and is, even now, still frequently emulated. It’s the stage upon which Woo showcased his idealistic style of filmmaking, blending the powerful emotional feelings of a drama with the high octane physical prowess of a classic action flick to create an individual hybrid genre that now, thanks to Woo, has established itself in mainstream cinema. This “Ultimate Edition” offers you the chance to revel in the creative talents of Woo’s early career and also to explore further, although perhaps not as far as the “Ultimate” connotations suggest you can.
