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Directed by: John Woo Starring: Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat In this sequel to 1986’s A Better Tomorrow (Yinghung bunsik), Ti Lung reprises his role of former Triad guy Ho, now incarcerated because of the events of the last film. However, when the police suspect his old friend Lung (Dean Shek) is getting involved with some shady dealings, they give him a chance to redeem himself by asking him to infiltrate Lung's shipyard company. Although initially baulking at the idea, Ho changes his mind when he discovers his undercover policeman brother Kit (Leslie Cheung) working for some mobsters interested with working with the now straight-shooting Lung. However, this future arrangement soon leads to Lung’s exile to America, suffering a nervous breakdown before being reunited with another reformed gangster Mark Lee (Chow Yun-Fat), the identical twin of Ho’s best friend Ken Gor who was shot full of lead at the end of the last movie. Generally considered not to be as good as the groundbreaking original, being a sucker for action I’m gonna say that I actually prefer this to the original with the film’s insane final gunfight that pits four guys against a hundred in the villain's mansion being a testament to that. But take note, apart from a few additional scenes and one other distinctly “John Woo style" shootout the film doesn’t actually have a lot of the action you expect from the director in it. Along with some heavily laden melodrama (with the crazy Lung and the hilarious “apologise to the rice” scenes coming to mind), the film also suffers from feeling like two separate films spliced together, splitting up the characters and not reuniting them until the third act. This stems from Woo and producer Tsui Hark not seeing eye to eye on the production and editing their own halves to the film, tensions borne from Woo not wanting to do a sequel in the first place, later flaring up in his career with his approach to film improvised(!) shootouts in The Killer and ultimately leading to his absence in 1989’s A Better Tomorrow III, the prequel. However, aside from these flaws, some silliness arising from the melodrama and the general inferiority to the original, A Better Tomorrow II is still a fairly entertaining sequel, and is definately worth the rental for the action in the bullet-riddled finale alone. 3.5/5 PROS: The insane gunfight that tops off the movie. CONS: Melodramatic silliness. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094357 mrkillboy fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Nov 6, 2004 |
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May 8, 2004 08:52
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:56 |
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I have a special place in my heart for the final shootout of A Better Tomorrow II. When I watch the movie I usually just skip straight to the end and play it over a few times. It's bloody, stylish, chaotic and all-in-all an insane massacre. The characters pop in and out of rooms spraying machinegun fire, mowing down hundreds of men at a time, all the while being cut up and fatally shot themselves. Chow Yun-Fat tosses grenades around like a demolition man and has a dual-pistol showdown with another trained assassin. Samurai swords even make their way into the act. Its influence continues today, from the funeral-black suits and standoffs of Reservoir Dogs to the trenchcoat/grenade version of Spike's final assault in Cowboy Bebop. As mrkillboy said, the rest of the movie can be very melodramatic and downright funny when Chow Yun-Fat appears in NYC speaking engrish (APOLOGIZE FOR THE LICE). Gunfights appear sporadically, but the movie is very inconsistant in its balance between drama and action. Despite how I toss off the rest of the movie in favor of the final fight, I recommend watching the first movie and the entirety of this sequel instead of just checking out the massacre. Without this background, the whole of what the characters have been through and a lot of the impact of the ending is lost. 4/5, and watch for the part where they jump over the wall and Lung falls completely sideways mid-air.
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May 8, 2004 09:38
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Not nearly as solid a movie as the first, but when it rains bullets, it pours, and for that I'll give it a 3.5
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May 8, 2004 19:14
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