Review of A Better Tomorrow II (1987) by Kevin M — 20 Apr 2010

With the phenomenal success of "A Better Tomorrow", producer Tsui Hark wasted no time in churning out a slapdash script for the sequel. It's clear Woo had major problems with the story from day one; Hark's constant tinkering and retooling results in an inconsistent tone and nearly incomprehensible plotline. How and why we go from Hong Kong to New York City is unimportant, likewise Dean Shek's shoehorned-in storyline is meant to provide "dramatic" beats for his "arc", but Woo slyly treats the character as an insignificant pawn thus rendering him equally unimportant. "A Better Tomorrow 2" is frivolous and gleefully idiotic, which is precisely the right approach to the material.

Reluctant gangsters Leslie Cheung and Lung Ti are there to provide some continuity from the original and lead us to the obvious selling point of Chow Yun-Fat. How would you bring back a character who, when last seen, was reduced to a smoldering heap of humanoid Swiss Cheese? The answer, simple as it is ludicrous, involves an identical twin brother raised in New York who runs a Chinese restaurant. We then cut to a frankly brilliant scene where a greaseball goombah complains about his food (as part of a protection racket?), then gets promptly beaten down by Chow and is forced to apologize to his fried rice.

The fried rice incident somehow leads to a war with Mafiosi, and all the better for it because this leads us to several ball-busting action set pieces, each successfully topping the last by exponential levels. A shotgun rampage through a fleabag motel is particularly delightful, as Woo never tires of sending stunt men sailing through doorways, down staircases and through plate glass windows in loving slow motion. His budget was not quite as massive as that for "The Killer" (which would be dwarfed by "Bullet in the Head"), but every last dollar is stretched. The finale, which finds our heroic trio laying waste to a mansion along with endless waves of white-suited thugs, finds Woo in a zone we would not see again until "Hardboiled".

No knowledge of "A Better Tomorrow" is required to enjoy its far superior sequel, which finds its melodramatic gangster tale reaching appropriate heights of sublime, giddy ridiculousness. Perhaps the disjointed storyline is due to over an hour of footage being hastily removed prior to release, but this is purely speculation. I suspect the lack of resolution was always intentional, however.