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A Better Tomorrow (1986)

Although the films of Jackie Chan were popular in the west, the general interest in Hong Kong movies had wanted to cult and underground circles, since the giddy heyday of the late seventies and early eighties Bruce Lee and Kung-Fu craze. This all changed in the West in the early nineties with the reease of John Woo's operatic bullet-ridden classics Hard Boiled and The Killer. In particular, Hard Boiled had generated the kind of reviews that many Hollywood films craved for, thus a new legion of film aficionado's sought to turn their attention towards the vibrant and energetic filmmaking of Hong Kong to seek out more heroic bloodshed titles.

In Britain their release coincided with the launch of a number of independent distributors of Hong Kong films (Hong Kong Classics, Made in Hong kong and Eastern Heroes), that gave the public a wider breadth and diversity of heroic bloodshed films on offer. Hong Kong action cinema would introduce film-goers to such Asian superstars such as Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, Ringo Lam, Simon Yam, Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima and Maggie Cheung to name but a few.

Interest in Hong Kong gangster action films was primarily due to the frenetic and bloody shoot-outs and explosions that comprised most of the films running time. Action fans loved watching a cast of hundreds dying, as their frail bodies were pumped full of lead and left sprawling over tables, before a bloody end climax and an enviable duel to the death.

The genre's emergence therefore can be traced back to John Woo's 1986 classic A Better Tomorrow that became an instant hit and spawned countless imitations as well as breathing new lifes into a stagnating film industry that comprised mostly of lame comedies and martial arts. A Better Tomorrow became the highest grossing film in Hong Kong's history and made overnight success of its lead Chow Yun-fat and director John Woo.

Although the gangster genre had been dealt with in the past with Kirk Wong's brutal depiction of triad life The Club (1980) and with Johnny Mak's The Long Arm Of The Law (1984), unquestionably the genre exploded onto screen with A Better Tomorrow.

After directing a series of minor Martial Arts pictures including Jackie Chan's Hand Of Death and slapstick comedies that included The Laughing Times and Plain Jane To The Rescue, John Woo was held as the new "king of comedy". After a string of commercial failures that he had shot in Taiwan, John Woo returned to Hong Kong. Dejected and unable to make the pictures he desired John Woo turned to his life long friend Tsui Hark at Cinema City to help produce a gangster film in the mould Lung Kong's True Colours Of A Hero and Japanese Yakuza films. Some sources have documented that John Woo and Tsui Hark clashed over the initial story, as Tsui Hark wanted the film to feature female leads in what was to be a new slant on the gangster genre. John Woo however held firm and later commented, "I always wanted to make a modern gangster film..."

A Better Tomorrow was released in Hong Kong in 1986 and saw the main character Mark played by Hong Kong television star Chow Yun-fat whose casting caused controversy at the time as he was not regarded as a successful film actor. The rest they say is history now as Chow Yun-fat has now made the transition to Hollywood. The supporting roled included the legendary Shaw Brothers actor Ti Lung who played his partner Ho whilst Leslie Cheung (may he rest in peace) a famous Cantonese pop singer co-starred as Ho's kid brother Kit and Waise Lee played the traitorous crime boss Shing.

The story premise concerns long-time friends Mark and Ho who have risen through the triad underworld counterfeiting American dollars, for a successful triad syndicate. Ho's brother Kit meanwhile is in the Hong Kong Police Academy and is unaware of his brother's underworld activities. His brother's shady connections and lifestyle are soon brought to his attention when Ho departs to Taiwan with the inexperienced Shing to enginerr their next big score.

When Ho arrives he is double-crossed by a rival gang an intense shoot-out inside a small isolated farmhouse erupts that results in Ho surrendering to the Taiwanese Police. Shing meanwhile escapes back to Hong Kong. Disgusted and humiliated by his brother's past, Kit severs all ties with his brother, however a hit man violently murders Kit and Ho's father at once widening the gulf between them.

In the film's famous scene, Mark seeks revenge against the crime lord whom double-crossed Ho. Whilst in a posh restaurant Mark hides a set of guns in a row of flower pots before bursting into the crime lord's concealed dining room and blows away his foes. As he retreats, he picks up the guns in the pot plants and blows away any adversaries coolly and with panache. With a match stick in his mouth, Mark turns to leave but is shot in the leg by the badly injured crime-boss. As blood oozes out Mark finished of his enemy with a fatal gunshot to the head before limping out. This stunning scene was later copied in John Woo's Just Heroes in rather comical circumstances.

Three years past before Ho is released from jail. Kit's rise through the Hong Kong Police force has been impossible due to his brother's criminal record and notoriety. Mark, who was crippled during the shotout, has succumbed to cleaning cars for Shing who ironically has now become a crime boss and revels in patronising his former mentor.

Ho tries to reconcile his differences with Kit, however Kit still blames Ho for the death of his father and wants nothing to do with him. Ho attempts to go straight, however Shing insists he re-join the group, however when he declines Kit is shot, Mark is badly beaten and his taxi firm is attacked. Angered, Mark and Ho set about to even the score, whereby Mark, Ho and Kit all unite in a dazzling and bloody finale against Shing and his men on an abandoned dock. Mark is shot in the head, before Ho kills Shing when surrounded by police. The film ends with Kit arresting his brother and handing him over to the police.

John Woo's direction played a major part in the film's success. Although his vision and choreography tightened in his later films, the emphasis on moments of poignant male bonding and brotherhood during and prior a stylised action scene, served to distance itself from exploitation film fodder into art. The action set pieces are almost operatic as if conducted by a musician, at once utterly delirious then in contrast filmed in John Woo's trademark slow motion.

Interestingly, this wasn't the first time John Woo had shot a frenzied and stylised action picture, his little seen Vietnam epic Heroes Shed No Tears saw him try out many of motifs and shots we come accustomed to in his pictures. Heroes Shed No Tears is a criminally underrated film and as bloody and explosive as any of his later work.

A certain amount of glamour had been added to the film, and this was solely down to Chow Yun-fat's character Mark Gor. As it has been well documented, Quentin Tarantino dressed like Chow Yun-fat for two weeks after seeing A Better Tomorrow, as did many people in Hong Kong as designer sun glasses and trench coats became all the rage. John Woo has commented that Chow Yun-fat's persona was inspired by images of French new-wave legend Alain Delon and Japanese actor Ken Takakura. The infamous Chow Yun-fat pose of firing two revolvers simultaneously came as John Woo has said from countless American westerns like Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

A Better Tomorrow went onto to win Best Film and Best Actor at the Hong Kong film awards and spawned two sequels. The success of A Better Tomorrow allowed John Woo the freedom to make the films he wanted to make. Stories of friendship, chivalry and justice and not comedies. However, buoyed on by the success of A Better Tomorrow the studio quickly bankrolled a sequel.

* * * Spoilers for A Better Tomorrow 2 + 3 * * *

The plot for A Better Tomorrow 2 was magnificently risible, as Chow Yun-fat came back from the dead to play Mark's twin brother, as the film became a celebration of itself and the genre. Leslie Cheung's character Kit dies before we are greeted with one of the greatest endings of any heroic bloodshe picture in a bullet ridden finale that boasts hundreds of corpses, rocket launchers, axes in an orgy of blood and retribution. The studio objected to John Woo killing off all the major characters, so as the film ends they are sit badly injured around an array of mangled corpses. Tsui Hark took over the reigns for A Better Tomorrow 3 set in war torn Saigon during the Vietnam conflict and the film charts Mark Gor's rise from a petty hoodlum into triad society.

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With John Woo's new exciting action sequences, gunplay had never looked so stunning. It was martial arts with bullets rather than fists, with beautiful and surreal bloodletting that sprayed across the scene in bursts of slow motion. This fresh approach and quick fire editing gave the action sequences moments of intensity, thrilling the viewer into what has been dubbed by Hong Kong film critic "Shu Kei", "the guilty pleasure of a John Woo scene".

Deservedly A Better Tomorrow is seen as a landmark in Hong Kong Cinema, and although his later films Bullet in The Head, The Killer and Hard Boiled represent John Woo directorial vision at his peak, A Better Tomorrow is truly the Godfather of Hong Kong Bloodshed.

Written on April 13th 2003

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