Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Lung Ti | ... |
Sung Tse-Ho
(as Ti Lung)
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Yun-Fat Chow | ... |
Mark
(as Chow Yun Fat)
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Leslie Cheung | ... | ||
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Emily Chu | ... | |
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Waise Lee | ... |
Shing
(as Lee Chi Hung)
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Feng Tien | ... |
Father Sung
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John Woo | ... | ||
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Yanzi Shi | ... |
Mr. Yiu
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Kenneth Tsang | ... |
Ken
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Fui-On Shing | ... | |
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Hsieh Wang | ... |
Mr. Wang
(as Hap Wong)
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Chi Fai Chan | ... |
'Little' Wang
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Ming Leung | ... |
Uncle Chan
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Hing-Yin Kam | ... |
Mr. Mok
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Pierre Tremblay | ... |
Interpol Officer
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This story is the tale of two brothers: one a successful counterfeiter and the younger a fledgling graduate of the HK police academy. The plot revolves around the split when the younger brother learns the other is a criminal and the efforts of the criminal brother to reform. Along the way are plenty of heists, double-crosses, and shoot outs. Written by Victor R. Volkman <sysop@hal9k.com>
In the 1980s, Chinese and Taiwanese films stormed into European and American art-house theatres, while for less fastidious audiences, Hong Kong provided cult action films, first Kung Fu pictures then gangster flicks. John Woo became the Crown Colony's hottest director through his kinetic crime flicks that filtered the lyrical violence of Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Walter Hill through an Asian sensibility and re-exported it to the States where Quentin Tarantino became a major admirer. Woo's trademarks are the stand-off, where two or more gunmen hold each other at bay, and the ferocious gunfight in which dozens of people are killed and restaurants blown apart as the hero pirouettes and somersaults while blasting away with two automatic pistols to throbbing, synthesized Western music. "A Better Tomorrow" is a characteristic fable of male friendship, stoicism, courage, and men living by a personal code, in which women are marginalized. It made an overnight star of Chow Yun Fat, who appeared in most of Woo's pictures. The handsome, reserved, athletic Chow is the epitome of Hong Kong movie cool, a moral man in an amoral world, his character is much the same whatever side of the law he is on. The movie also introduced Leslie Cheung, who was to become an iconic figure in mainland Chinese cinema.