A Better Tomorrow (1986)

That was an excellent one.

hyped garbage

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

ACTING 9/10 A Better Tomorrow (1986) does great on showing the emotion on every scene. I like how those kinds of movies handle drama. Sometimes, it can be over the top, but, in the end, you might be left with a knot down your throat.SOUNDTRACK 5/10 You'll be hearing the same song over and over and over, with little nuances here and there, kinda like the Super Mario World Super Nintendo game.VISUAL EFFECTS 10/10 Everything is practical and kept simple.PLOT 8/10 A beautiful plot about choices, principles, friendship and loyalty.OVERALL 8/10 A Better Tomorrow is a nice drama to watch. It's not for every one, but those who end up getting interested for this movie won't get disappointed.

Director John Woo's first big breakthrough movie and still considered to be one of the best Hong Kong action movies. A movie that helped popularizing Hong Kong action in the West and is still, after multiple decades, an iron hard nailbiter.Sung Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) is a member of the Triad in charge of their money deliveries. With him he has his trusted partner Mark Lee (Chow Yun-Fat). But things take a turn for the worse when his last deal goes south - don't they always - and he is caught by the police, thus letting his younger brother Kit (Leslie Cheung), a freshly graduated police officer, know about his criminal tendencies. And thus Ho's life is completely ruined, for even when he gets out of prison, he has lost his position in the Triad, his brother has cut all ties with him and even his partner isn't doing as well as he used to.What I like the most about this film is its ability to mix crazy, completely wild action scenes with scenes of surprising depth and character. Ho and Mark's struggle to regain their footing and position in the world is very identifiable, and Ho's willingness to at least try to straighten up makes him an admirable character. We also have Mark, whose character arc isn't as defined and deep, but who works as a good counterpoint to Ho because of his innate coolness and entertainment factor.John Woo is a legendary name in the action genre, and for a good reason. All the fight scenes are amazing, the special effects have withstood the test of time surprisingly well and you're never lost in space, even though the fights are very energetic and fast-paced.Woo has an instantly recognizable style and if you haven't seen any of his movies, this is a great place to start. It has it all. Great characters, even better action scenes, scenic locations, high stakes and boiling tension. Definitely recommended.

A Better Tomorrow is the first true John Woo movie. It's the first film that he made where he felt that he actually had creative control over it. He made a few films prior to this such as The Young Dragons, Hand of Death, and Laughing Times but this is the first film that employed the John Woo trademarks that he's famous for. But with all that being said, does it still hold up after all these years? Let's find out!Firstly, the story. The story here is the usual John Woo crap about loyalty, friendship, honor, and redemption but the thing that makes it different is that our protagonist isn't actually Chow Yun-Fat despite him being in the DVD box cover. He's more of a supporting character this time and the main focus is on a character named Ho Gar, who is an ex- money counterfeiter who tries to reconcile with his cop brother, Kit after being released from prison. There's also a lot less action here than you expect. The film focuses more on its characters and I actually prefer it this way because I find these characters compelling.The drama in this film is what I latch on to because Ho is actually a very sympathetic and relatable character. He's a good man who cares for his brother but made some mistakes in the past that haunt his present. He could've just been played by some douchebag who just makes puppy dog eyes the entire time but Lung Ti just has this natural look on his face of guilt and remorse that makes you instantly feel sympathy towards him. His character in this movie goes through an arc where he learns that he has to use violence to deal with his problem. At first, he tries to just have a normal life since his mob days are over but when Shing(a mobster who was an apprentice of him) decides to ruin his life by hurting those he cares for, he has ultimately no choice but to fight them head on. It's a great arc for him because it makes him redeem himself in the most unconventional way possible which is by killing Shing and allowing himself to be arrested again showing that he is sincere about his desire for redemption. In other movies, he would just die protecting Kit as his redemption(which would've been horribly cliché) but here, it's unique and more touching as a result.The performances here are mostly great. As I've mentioned above, Lung Ti is great in this movie but everyone else is also great. Leslie Cheung plays his role well with determination, anger, but also a sense of youth and inexperience in his work. While Chow Yun-Fat doesn't get as much screen time as expected, he plays his role well with a sense of honor and chivalry. Listening to him deliver his speeches in this movie will make your balls drop. The one performance I'm not too crazy about is Emily Chu as Jackie. She's just really whiny and irritating the entire time and doesn't do much outside of just whining. Still, everyone else was great.The action sequences here aren't as big or as well-choreographed as his later films because of the budget limitations but they still work because you care for the characters and that's what's important. In Hard Boiled, I had a difficulty latching onto the characters so I didn't care about the results of the gunfights which made the action feel unexciting despite how well-choreographed they are. So the action in this movie still works for me despite not being as epic as The Killer or Hard Boiled.The score is great. I love how 80's the music sounds in this movie and it gives the film an identity. The theme for Mark sounds really awesome in the action scenes and the sad music for Ho adds a lot more emotion to the scene without feeling too melodramatic. All in all, the music in this film was great!However, I do have some issues with this movie. I feel the pacing is a little too quick at times and I wish they would slow down sometimes. Also, it isn't a very good-looking film because of the budget limitations. Lastly, I have some difficulty understanding Shing's motivation. He betrayed Ho in the past and got him in jail but now he wants Ho to work with him? I just don't get it.Overall, though I think this is a great film with good drama, good action, great score, and is just entertaining as a whole so I'll give it a 8/10.

Made before the Asian film wave of the late 90s and often inexplicably neglected in John Woo retrospectives, with the unfortunate result of being rather unknown to many cinephiles worldwide, 'A Better Tomorrow' and its sequel nevertheless became arguably the first real example of a pop culture phenomenon that seized the imagination of the entire Far Eastern region and helped create a craze for Hong Kong films that lasted a decade (go into any street in Seoul or Tokyo and hum Leslie Cheung's theme song, and chances are there will be at least some who will still recognize it). It is difficult to describe now just what a zeitgeist-making movie this really was: it catapulted not only the director Woo and the leading man Chow to superstardom, but helped put Leslie Cheung over the top in the film business with a hitherto rare serious role and that song.As a concentrated concoction of melodramatic violence, it doesn't quite measure up to 'The Killer', and lacks the balletic geometry of 'Hard Boiled', but the doomed camaraderie of Chow and his crew, reminiscent of the classic westerns or perhaps 'Seven Samurai', and the surprisingly sensitive treatment of wounded machismo, set 'Tomorrow' apart from subsequent Hong Kong actioners. Chow looks so effortlessly cool that it is with aching regret that you watch his Hollywood disasters (Tinseltown tended to treat his character as a sort of Freeman-lite sage, protégé in tow, whereas Chow was always at his best as a quietly smouldering loner); Cheung, already a star, became a legitimate Asian icon; and Woo, for whom 'Tomorrow' was the first real success and would incontestably go on to make more complete movies, hasn't quite yet managed to dress so well the sorrow of men's failed dreams with such stylish violence again.It is remarkable to compare Hong Kong's approach to destructive masculinity in action movies with the contemporary sturm-und-drang of Schwarzenegger-era Hollywood: while the latter concentrated on biceps the size of the Alps and explosions of increasingly tectonic severity, Woo helped create a seminal style of graceful, tightly defined slow-mo set-pieces and a narrative, though simple, that was always grounded in identifiable human emotions. At least some of these elements would famously go on to influence turn-of-century Hollywood, but this is where it all started - the original and still definitive John Woo/Chow Yun-Fat collaboration, and the quintessential 80s Asian movie experience.