BetterTommorrow

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

I’ve been a fan of the gun fu and heroic bloodshed genres for quite some time, and in my mind it doesn’t get any better than the films of John Woo. Take A Better Tomorrow, for instance. It’s the first in a trilogy of films dealing with themes of honor, redemption, family, and loyalty. And before I go into depth about the movie, the copy I own is a poorly translated version found in an imported box set with all three films, so forgive me if some of the spellings of character and actor names are incorrect. Anchor Bay released better versions of the first two roughly a decade ago, and they’re difficult to come by. Supposedly Dragon Dynasty will eventually re-release the first two, if not the third as well.

The tale begins with Mark and Ho, portrayed by Chow Yun Fat and Ti Leung, respectively, going about their day to day business as high ranking members of the criminal underworld. Their relationship is established very quickly as two men who have shared so much life experience together that they’re bonded as brothers and will watch each other’s back until one of them dies.

Mark is the more carefree of the two, obviously enjoying his lifestyle and approaching situations with a flippant attitude as long as things are going well. Ho is more reserved, opting to keep his head on straight and not let himself enjoy too much excess. He has a good reason for this, his brother Kit is a police officer and has no idea of his brother’s criminal nature.

Ho and Kit’s dying father knows, however, and pleads with Ho to renounce his ways so that his brother might never know the truth. With both relief and slight reluctance, Ho agrees to honor his father’s wishes after overseeing a final job. Mark doesn’t go this time, replacing him is a newcomer in the organization, Shing. It’s nothing too risky and things should go smoothly. Needless to say, things don’t go smoothly at all, and it starts a chain of events that have Ho incarcerated, Kit fully aware of his brother’s actions, and Mark in a leg brace for the rest of his life.

The rest of the film deals with redemption, vengeance, and determination. I’m being deliberately vague with a lot of the plot details because a lot of what makes the film interesting to me is the solutions characters have for the problems they face. This is a movie that leans more on the dramatic side than the action side, though that’s not saying there isn’t plenty of action or classic John Woo shootouts. They’re just the icing on a delicious cake.

Even watching a poorly translated version, with glaring errors like ‘draught beer’ instead of ‘draft beer’ the performances given by the three leads are amazing. The fire and personal integrity of Chow Yun Fat’s character Mark is on full display every scene he’s in, most notably the story he tells Shing in the bar about the first time someone pointed a gun at him and the humiliation he suffered. Another good example is the scene where he sees Ho for the first time in three years, and Ho finds him basically homeless in a parking garage. “This isn’t what your letters told me,” Ho says to Mark, and Mark looks at him, knowing that the lie told to his friend made his time in jail just a little bit more bearable. At the same time, however, once the truth was known it was still very painful.

Ti Leung’s Ho is a man desperate for redemption and acceptance from his brother Kit, and his pain is visible every time they meet. Kit is another tortured soul, determined to prove he isn’t like his brother, and will never be like him. The police force won’t listen to him, however, and he’s told several times that he’s too close to the criminal investigation against his brother and his cohorts, and he’s not permitted to investigate any further. His personal vendetta against Ho is even driving a wedge in his marriage.

This is very much a ‘guy’ movie. This film teaches us so often that the answer to a lot of things in life is violence, and as long as your cause is a noble and worthy one, you’ll never run out of bullets or get wounded too badly, unless the climax is just around the corner. But it’s such a beautiful violence, punctuated with signature John Woo slow motion shots, akimbo pistols, and a soundtrack that is both subtle and inspiring at the same time.

I also feel the soundtrack deserves more of a mention as well. It’s pretty lack of diversity, but it’s used in a very brilliant fashion. Scenes when other directors would have put music, Woo doesn’t, or if he does, he’ll slide it in very calmly, and let it swell and engulf you. It helps create the world these characters inhabit, and it appeals to the baser instincts, as well.

This isn’t the same John Woo we’ll encounter in later films. This is John Woo fairly early in his career and a little more reserved, which isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. And in this film we see the start of what Chow Yun Fat will become in later outings with Woo, such as Hard Boiled or The Killer, an iconic bad-ass that you wish you could be. If you haven’t seen this film yet, don’t wait any longer.

3 ½ out of 4

reviewed by Seth Moore