Review of A Better Tomorrow II (1987) by Alexander C — 14 Oct 2007

A Better Tomorrow II picks up several years after the first film left off. Kit is still a detective with the HKPD, but with his relationship patched up with his brother. Mark is still dead, and Ho is behind bars for his part in the massive gunfight at the end of the first film. That is, until the head of the HKPD offers Ho his freedom provided he goes undercover to bring down his old friend, Lung Si (played by Dean Sheck) who used to be running the counterfeiting ring. Ho is reluctant at first until he learns that Kit is undercover on the same case.

Ultimately, they learn that Lung is innocent of the charges against him, and is a pawn in a larger scheme, ultimately leading to them contacting the twin brother of Mark (from the first film) Ken Gor (again played by Chow Yun-Fat, for help. This all leads to a massive spiral of violence leading to a massive gunfight at the end with our heroes taking on over 90 of the villian's henchmen.

This film is, most certainly, completely different in tone from the first film. There are much more stunts in this film, more gunfights, and while the wounds in the gunfights aren't totally shrugged off, they aren't crippling either. Ultimately, it feels like more of an action film then the first one (which felt like more of a gangster drama). The scope of the film is broader as well, with scenes shot in both New York and in Hong Kong.

The acting here is again very good. Chow Yun-Fat further shows his skill by spending his first 15 minutes of the film acting mostly in English. Dean Shek also does an excelent job conveying his torment at his daughter's death, which he holds himself responsible for. Lung Ti's performance as Ho has also changed as well, playing the man who was once a gangster, and understands what it means to be a gangster, but has lost all taste for it - yet has to persist at pretending at one to save his brother and his friend. The only thing which I would call a "weak link" would be Leslie Cheung's performance as Kit, as the character lost most of his pathos as written - instead the character has been fit neatly into the niche of the undercover cop, with the added bit that he's going undercover with his brother, which removes some of the angst those kind of roles normally have.

In conclusion, if you liked A Better Tomorrow, give this a try. If you liked the first film for the excellent performances by everyone involved, but didn't like the gunplay, well... there's still plenty of excellent performances here. If you liked the first film for the gunplay, then there's plenty more where that came from. Either way, it's an excellent piece of work by John Woo, and is certainly worthy of your attention.