"A Better Tomorrow" (1986)

(Originally released as Ying hung boon sik)

Starring: Lung Ti, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun Fat, Emily Chu, Waise Lee, Fui-On Shing, Kenneth Tsang

First the lowdown: A Hong Kong action takeoff of what would be considered a Pacino/De Niro shtick in America.

Whenever I hear a title like A Better Tomorrow, I think of something I’ll run into on the Lifetime network about a reuniting children reunited after their parent’s tragic divorce or a woman’s harrowing battle with breast cancer. I never thought I’d see Chow Yun fat pumping round after round into an army of Chinese gangsters.

Tomorrow starts off with our two leads, Mark and Ho, who have been tucking away a tidy fortune in a counterfeiting scam. Ho has been carrying on the family tradition from his father, while keeping his younger brother Kit in the dark. Kit is the family pride and joy as he is graduating from the police academy, oh the irony. However, Ho and his father knows that it’s only a matter of time before Kit will find out what he really does for a living, so when the opportunity comes for him to set up shop in Taiwan, Ho jumps on it. But things don’t go as planned overseas and Ho turns himself in to the Taiwanese police to help his partner, Shing, escape.

Back in the Oyster Saucy City, the gang that set Ho up is now pissed because he turned himself in, and decides to kidnap his father to insure that Ho won’t spill his guts in prison. Kit interrupts the kidnapping attempt, but the poor kid gets pummeled so brutally that all he can do is watch his father die. Meanwhile, word of Ho’s imprisonment and the death of his father (who was Mark’s boss) has passed on to Mark, who then enacts his own bloody, bullet-flavored revenge in the first of several scenes that would demonstrate John Woo’s trademark operatic-style action choreography. (It’s scenes like this where I can almost smell the cordite wafting off the screen.) Mark doesn’t go through the hit unscathed, however, and catches a bullet in his ankle. However the shooter gets an entire clip unloaded into his face.

3 years later, Ho is released from prison, Kit is a police inspector, Mark is crippled, and SHING is in control of the old gang. Kit’s boss calls him on the carpet when Ho is released. Because of the new “though on corruption” administration in the police bureau, the boss lets Kit know that any crime syndicate investigations he has are re-assigned to someone without “family ties.” Now pissed that his future in law enforcement has been summarily shit-canned, Kit is now determined more than ever to bust Shing, badge or no badge.

Ho, on the other hand, wants out of the life and has been trying to follow the straight and narrow. He tries to reunite with Kit, but his younger brother wants nothing to do with him and ignores all of Ho’s claims that he has changed. To demonstrate his good faith, Ho follows the advice of a friend on the inside that directs him to Ken, who runs a taxi service that employs ex-cons. Despite the rough beginning, life seems like it may actually be on the uptake for, Ho, when Shing calls him in. When Ho arrives at his old office, he runs into Mark and sees how low he has fallen because of his injury – Mark is now scrubbing windscreens for tips.

Shing wants Ho to work for him again because Ho was an effective businessman and his brother is in the police force. Ho wants nothing to do with it, so he tells Shing where he can stick his offer. Shing is not one to be deterred, however, and arranges an attack on Kit. With Kit in the hospital, Mark and Ho come up with a plan that will not only get Shing out of their hair, but give Kit some breathing space

It’s a great flick and is considered to be John Woo’s seminal film that would separate his directing style from others in Hong Kong. (Having action powerhouse Tsui Hark produce also probably helped.) One of the Tomorrow’s fatal flaws, however, is with Chow Yun Fat, who does a lot of scenery chewing in this film. His character, Mark, is not only secondary to the plot, but every time Mark shows up on screen all attention is diverted to him. It makes me wonder if Mark was originally supposed to the focus of the movie. In fact the two prequels that came after revolve entirely around the character of Mark.

Line of the movie: “I swore I’d never let anyone put a gun to my head again.” Mark needs to find a new job then.

Five stars. Take me home.