Review of A Better Tomorrow (2010) by Trevor B — 23 Feb 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010.

(1986) A Better Tomorrow.

(Chinese with English subtitles).

ACTION.

Ii have to say John Woo revolutionized how action films were done starting with this film which was the highest grossing film during that year in hong Kong with 36 million HK dollars and Hollywood took notice!!

After Sam Peckinpah(the master of slow motion) had died no other director continued Peckinpah's slow motion techniques until actionmaster John Woo started using it. I t was also the first film in a long time to see character (Chow Yun- Fat) wearing a long overcoat; the first film in a long time to see a man shooting with two pistols one on each hand while wearing sunglasses and Hollywood took notice starting with Bruce Willis 1991 "Last Boyscout" and "Reservoir Dogs" released in 1989 which is not an action film. The last time I saw films doing those two things that I mentioned was in Westerns and not on real life, and John Woo was the first director to use those things starting with a film called "A Better Tomorrow" released in 1986 in Hong Kong. Because Hong Kong was under British rule until 1997, they actually did a pretty good job dubbing Hong Kong films as well and this is one of them, at least better than Hollywood anyway.

Although I always liked watching all of my Chinese films in natural dialect with English subtitles, there was one scene which I felt that the dubbing CHANGE was better than the Chinese version, and that was when Chow Yun Fatt was planting guns into the flower pots and the music that started playing during that scene was a song sung by Lesly Chung, the co-star and I must say that was the only time I preferred the English version over the Chinese subtitled was on that scene ONLY!! It's not because Leslie Chung was a terrible singer, but the way the British did this added more more impact!! I don't need no song to be sung during that scene at all!!! I also don't like the fact to learn about how Chow Yun Fat may have hit for real during one brutal scene for the film which was one of the things Woo complained about while he was 'making films in Hollywood'.

ACTION.

4/4.