IMDb RATING
7.2/10
12K
YOUR RATING
A restauranteur teams up with a police officer and his ex-con brother to avenge the death of a friend's daughter.A restauranteur teams up with a police officer and his ex-con brother to avenge the death of a friend's daughter.A restauranteur teams up with a police officer and his ex-con brother to avenge the death of a friend's daughter.
- Awards
- 2 nominations total
Chow Yun-Fat
- Ken
- (as Chow Yun Fat)
- …
Lung Ti
- Sung Tse-Ho
- (as Ti Lung)
Shing Fui-On
- Pui's Right-Hand Man
- (as Fui-On Shing)
Featured reviews
Chow Yun-Fat is back, teaming up the cop "Kit" and ex-con "Ho" to deal some serious whup-ass on a gang of thugs, for killing their friend's daughter.
This one's not John Woo's best but it's still great in the genre of HK cop movies. The first half is not as good as the second, with some plot holes and kind of weird scenes establishing the state of mind of their friend (whose daughter was killed). Not to give anything away but - you will see what I mean.
Better Tomorrow II proves that nobody looks cooler wielding a 12-gauge shotgun than Chow Yun-Fat (ok, maybe Schwarzeneggar in T2).
The final gun battle at Ko's mansion is phenomenal - it gives Scarface a run for its money in terms of body count and ropes of blood splashing on walls. I love Woo's explosive style of close gun battles and over-the-top carnage. I mean, is it really necessary, once pumping 2 lethal rounds into the bad guy's chest thus assuring his death, to empty the clips from both handguns into him as he is staggering back? Better Tomorrow II states emphatically - YES!
This one's not John Woo's best but it's still great in the genre of HK cop movies. The first half is not as good as the second, with some plot holes and kind of weird scenes establishing the state of mind of their friend (whose daughter was killed). Not to give anything away but - you will see what I mean.
Better Tomorrow II proves that nobody looks cooler wielding a 12-gauge shotgun than Chow Yun-Fat (ok, maybe Schwarzeneggar in T2).
The final gun battle at Ko's mansion is phenomenal - it gives Scarface a run for its money in terms of body count and ropes of blood splashing on walls. I love Woo's explosive style of close gun battles and over-the-top carnage. I mean, is it really necessary, once pumping 2 lethal rounds into the bad guy's chest thus assuring his death, to empty the clips from both handguns into him as he is staggering back? Better Tomorrow II states emphatically - YES!
Even though "A Better Tomorrow II" is a pretty good sequel to its great predecessor, it is no masterpiece like "The Killer", but still much better than Woo´s awful Hollywood-garbage "MI:2"!!! Once more Chow Yun Fat´s giving an over the top performance, the gunfights are well choreographed and the score of Joseph Koo and Lowell Lo are real adrenalizers! This film doesn´t deserve the predicate "cult movie" and it will never reach the status of it, but nevertheless it´s a fine Hong Kong-actioner that lovers of Asian cinema should check out!
A BETTER TOMORROW II is the superior follow-up to the John Woo original. This time around, both Tsui Hark and Woo share directorial duties in a typical tale of gangsters. Betrayal, violent shoot-outs and madness are the order of the day, and for the most part you'll be watching for the exemplary action.
Be warned: this is a film that requires you to suspend your disbelief. Chow Yun Fat's character doesn't return from the original - for obvious reasons - so instead his 'twin brother' makes an appearance here. Still, it gives Woo the chance to feature his favourite actor in more outrageous set-pieces, with the stair-sliding scene being a real highlight here.
The storyline involves a couple of ex-cons given the task of going undercover to take down a suspected smuggler (Dean Shek, of DRUNKEN MASTER fame). They soon find themselves embroiled in a murky world where a crime boss is planning a massive takeover and murder is the order of the day. As in GOD OF GAMBLERS, one character's madness takes up a big part of the running time.
What you get here are a number of Hong Kong megastars (alongside Yun Fat, Ti Lung has a welcome role, plus A Chinese GHOST STORY's Leslie Cheung) indulging themselves in some frenetically exciting shoot-outs. Woo's action choreography is superb, with hard-hitting bullets flying around the screen, slow motion blood sprays, and all manner of outrageousness. The ending, which is impossibly violent and over the top, proves a neat precursor to the later madness of THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED.
Be warned: this is a film that requires you to suspend your disbelief. Chow Yun Fat's character doesn't return from the original - for obvious reasons - so instead his 'twin brother' makes an appearance here. Still, it gives Woo the chance to feature his favourite actor in more outrageous set-pieces, with the stair-sliding scene being a real highlight here.
The storyline involves a couple of ex-cons given the task of going undercover to take down a suspected smuggler (Dean Shek, of DRUNKEN MASTER fame). They soon find themselves embroiled in a murky world where a crime boss is planning a massive takeover and murder is the order of the day. As in GOD OF GAMBLERS, one character's madness takes up a big part of the running time.
What you get here are a number of Hong Kong megastars (alongside Yun Fat, Ti Lung has a welcome role, plus A Chinese GHOST STORY's Leslie Cheung) indulging themselves in some frenetically exciting shoot-outs. Woo's action choreography is superb, with hard-hitting bullets flying around the screen, slow motion blood sprays, and all manner of outrageousness. The ending, which is impossibly violent and over the top, proves a neat precursor to the later madness of THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED.
10Azzy
I have seen true ultra-violence in films many times in my life, but the last 10 minutes of this movie surpasses anything I have ever seen or imagined. men are mowed down by the hundreds, blood splattering every which way in frighteningly large volumes. it exceeds even the hospital shootout in Hard Boiled, which took four times as long. It is also more inventive than most of John Woo's gunfights (I am NOT critisizing his other works!!!). The heroes use grenades and swords. Two parts stand out from this amazing carnage. The first is Ti lung's smash up with shing fu on. swords and axes, guts and glass, everything goes flying. The second is the duel between Chow Yun-Fat and Chong, The silent mafioso killer. Their Gun trade is a classic. The rest of the movie is pretty cool, including a gunfight in a Brooklyn hotel, Ala Taxi Driver, and a scene where Chow Yun-Fat makes fun of the fetishized Better Tomorrow dress.
The first 'A Better Tomorrow' was a stunning, kinetic and emotional roller-coaster that changed the face of HK cinema. The success of ABT meant a sequel and some bright spark decided that Chow Yun Fat (whose character was definitely quite dead at ABT's finale) should make a return.
A prequel would have made more sense, but instead Chow yun Fat returns as dead Mark's identical twin Ken. Holy plot contrivances Batman! After reformed gangster Ho is sent to prison at the end of ABT, his brother Kit has gone undercover to investigate a suspected counterfeiter. Given the chance to join the investigation, Ho is released to act as an informer, if only so he can protect Kit.
All good so far right? The film does well to pick up from where last time left off, thankfully bringing back Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung... but then totally takes the wrong direction. To me, Chow Yun Fat may have been the charismatic centre of ABT but it was always about the brothers Ho and Kit. In ABT2, the film spends way too much time on two NEW characters - the twin brother Ken and framed gangster Si Lung, who is gradually going insane after falling foul of Hong Kong's triads. For every tense sequence of Ho and Kit's investigation, there's two or more scenes or Si Lung's shaking and shuddering and Ken's attempts to snap him out of it.
As far as the action goes, there are no complaints here. The finale is top-drawer chaos on behalf of John Woo and at least gets a great build up sequence to lead into it. But the story focuses on characters and subplots that, to be frank, are mostly irrelevant. Before you criticise me, I love Woo's other work. But saying 'this is a John Woo film' and that 'action is the priority' would do a disservice to the original, which may have changed action cinema, but always kept in mind the story and characters at hand.
A prequel would have made more sense, but instead Chow yun Fat returns as dead Mark's identical twin Ken. Holy plot contrivances Batman! After reformed gangster Ho is sent to prison at the end of ABT, his brother Kit has gone undercover to investigate a suspected counterfeiter. Given the chance to join the investigation, Ho is released to act as an informer, if only so he can protect Kit.
All good so far right? The film does well to pick up from where last time left off, thankfully bringing back Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung... but then totally takes the wrong direction. To me, Chow Yun Fat may have been the charismatic centre of ABT but it was always about the brothers Ho and Kit. In ABT2, the film spends way too much time on two NEW characters - the twin brother Ken and framed gangster Si Lung, who is gradually going insane after falling foul of Hong Kong's triads. For every tense sequence of Ho and Kit's investigation, there's two or more scenes or Si Lung's shaking and shuddering and Ken's attempts to snap him out of it.
As far as the action goes, there are no complaints here. The finale is top-drawer chaos on behalf of John Woo and at least gets a great build up sequence to lead into it. But the story focuses on characters and subplots that, to be frank, are mostly irrelevant. Before you criticise me, I love Woo's other work. But saying 'this is a John Woo film' and that 'action is the priority' would do a disservice to the original, which may have changed action cinema, but always kept in mind the story and characters at hand.
Did you know
- TriviaJohn Woo's first cut was about 160 minutes long. He and producer Hark Tsui had disagreements over the focus of the film. Tsui felt that it should focus more on the Lung, while Woo's original version focused more on characters Ken and Kit. Hark also insisted that the film should be shortened to a commercially viable length, which in Hong Kong is considered under 120 minutes, so theatre owners could show the film at least eight times a day.
Woo refused to cut it down and when he and Hark couldn't agree about the focus of the film and how it should be re-edited, Hark went and started secretly re-editing it himself, since he had equal control with the editing along with three other editors (Woo being the fifth). At the same time when Hark would cut some parts out, Woo would secretly put the missing parts back in. With only a week remaining before the film was to be released in theaters, and with pressure from the studio and distributors to trim the film down, Woo and Hark agreed to send the movie to "Cinema City Editing Unit", which meant that they sent each reel of the film to one of Cinema City's editors, who would then go to work on his particular reel. There was no overall supervision whatsoever by either Woo or Hark. Each of these editors just cut things out as they saw fit, then returned the reels. What they came up with is now the official released version of the film.
When Woo saw this final version, which was 105 minutes long, in the theater for the first time he was so shocked to see how badly it was re-edited that he disowned the film; to this day the only part he said he considers to be his work is the final shootout sequence. Woo's director's cut was only shown once to film executives in Hong Kong, before all the re-editing problems began. The Hong Kong trailer--5-1/2 minutes long--is the only source to get glimpses of some deleted scenes; blood-covered Kit being brutally beaten up, Kit seeing his wife while still having injuries from the beating on his face, Ken and Lung playing with the bird.
- GoofsNobody ever told Lung that his daughter is dead. Yet even Ken acts like it's a given without being told by anybody from Hong Kong.
- Alternate versionsAll 5.1 and 7.1 sound mixes found on various DVD- and Blu-ray editions feature added and re-dubbed sound effects, and vary greatly from the original monaural soundtrack.
- ConnectionsEdited from Le syndicat du crime (1986)
- SoundtracksThe Abduction
by Gary Chang
- How long will A Better Tomorrow II be?Powered by Alexa
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By what name was Le syndicat du crime 2 (1987) officially released in India in English?
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