fludd.org - Movie Review

For a very long time, the movie industry in Hong Kong has been heavily dependent of martial arts movies that were not necessarily good for the reputation of the old colony’s movie industry. Before he became the director that many people actually know, John Woo was searching a style of his own. With A Better Tomorrow, Woo certainly attempted to give to Hong Kong a cinematographic prestige that no one couldn’t give and not only this movie became an icon in Chinese gunfight movies, but it is also the movie that started it all…

Even though you have to watch A Better Tomorrow in its version dubbed in English, you won’t certainly lose the line of the story. At the first look, A Better Tomorrow, as an action movie, has such an incredible psychological depth that really allows the character to interact between each other and thanks to that depth facilitate our need to appreciate these characters that are well crafted. As a result of so much attention paid to the characters, the viewers will be delighted to see the characters test their love, brotherhood and above all, their honour.

As you will probably notice, A Better Tomorrow is a gangster movie, but as opposed to so many American gangster movies that I couldn’t watch to the end, the movie’s storyline has a very quick pace that doesn’t, hopefully, disadvantage it. Honestly, I can tell you that the best part of A Better Tomorrow is certainly the time when the two leading characters (Ho and Mark) are preparing their revenge in order to gain their honour back. That event (that could be described as the climax) definitely shows us how much the characters, depending of which side they belong to, care for each other, even though they all bear noticeable differences, in terms of behaviour.

For all the fans of John Woo’s gunfight movies out there, the main reason why you would want to watch A Better Tomorrow is the bunch of gunfight scenes. Needless to tell you that A Better Tomorrow is the first gunfight movie from John Woo and therefore, you might not see some heavily stylized action scenes just like in Face/Off. After all, even though A Better Tomorrow might leave a bitter feeling in many people’s mind, I am categorically convinced that this movie really set the basic rules for gunfight movies that will, without a moment of doubt, be copied by American moviemakers in many movies such as The Matrix. Speaking about gunfight movies, the Chinese moviemakers really started it all and the American moviemakers are just copycats.

The other reason why I really loved A Better Tomorrow is because of the solid acting delivered by the well chosen cast. Long time kung fu actor Ti Lung, as Ho, certainly does a good job, but unfortunately, many people might think that he is not the type of actor who should bear the movie over his shoulder. In fact, the real actor who is bearing the movie over his shoulder is certainly Chow Yun-Fat (Hong Kong 1941), the actor who is portraying Mark. Chow Yun-Fat seems to take his role very seriously and even though he is a supporting actor, Chow Yun-Fat’s character is certainly more charismatic and appreciable than Ti Lung’s character and as strange as it might look, it makes Chow Yun-Fat looks like the real hero of the movie who definitely steals the spotlight.

Moreover, Leslie Cheung, as Kit, is really superb, but even though he doesn’t appear as much as Ti Lung and Chow Yun-Fat, Cheung is certainly an actor that any given person, even a casting agent, will definitely want to fondly remember because he’s very hard-working. Lee Waise, as Shing, is an actor that I won't hesitate to put in a list of best actors in a role of a villain appearing in a movie from Hong Kong. Besides, Lee Waise is just the perfect choice to play Shing. Other great performance can be seen from Emily Chu, as Jackie, Kit’s girlfriend, and Kenneth Tsang (Die Another Day ; Memoirs of a Geisha), as Ken.

Finally, if you’re looking for a good action movie, A Better Tomorrow is not going to make you notice that you’ve wasted your time. In fact, as a lovely action movie, A Better Tomorrow has what it takes to seduce both action seekers and people who falls in love with elegant movies for artistic reason, even though the story lacks a little bit of common sense at the end. Moreover, A Better Tomorrow really launched both John Woo’s and Chow Yun-Fat's career thanks to this movie that I will gladly consider as a classic from the cinema of Hong Kong.

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