Review of A Better Tomorrow (2010) by Mark D — 07 Aug 2008

One of the biggest smash hits in the history of Hong Kong, this is the film that put John Woo on the map and changed the course of the action genre forever. An ultra-violent, highly stylized gangster melodrama populated with strong three-dimensional characters, this showed filmmakers everywhere that Hong Kong cinema was the model that needed to be followed, and that the cookie-cutter, video game-like action films that Hollywood was producing in the eighties were no longer going to cut it.

While this isn't the action masterpiece that John Woo's later Hong Kong efforts are, it still contains plenty of stellar setpieces and an iconic, star-making performance by Chow Yun-Fat.