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A Better Tomorrow IIRating:
Release Date: 16 January, 2001 Retail Price: $14.98 OUR Price: $12.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (11 total) |
A Better Tomorrow II Reviews
FORGET Better Tomorrow I - buy this one
Better Tomorrow was one of the most boring John Woo movies I've ever watched. Over and over again Chow Yun Fat whined and the other guy tried to make things right with his whiny brother played by Leslie Cheung. Even the final gunfight lacked the charm of other Woo movies.
This movie, on the other hand, is amazing. The first five minutes give you all you need to know to keep up. And then it's off to America to see the TWIN BROTHER of the Chow Yun Fat character from the first movie (yes, we know it's a soap opera plot device, but who cares?) runnign a restaurant as gangsters with a distinctly Chinese-British-phony Italian accent try to run him out of business. His "You don't like my rice" line is classic as he has them apologize to his rice.
Anyhow anotehr gangster comes to stay with Chow Yun Fat and it turns out that his associates want to kill him (and kill his daughter pretty fast too) and so Chow is in the midst of the gun battle. Shortly thereafter Lesli Cheung gets shot, insists upon calling his wife and in the time he spends talking to her he could have had those bullets removed. I'm just saying.
ANyhow it all comes down to one of the most kinetic, drawn-out, enjoyable battles in history of films as the three take guns, rifles, machetes and basic cooless in order to wipe out the entire Hong Kong gangster structure at once. I just can't say enough about how cool the final gun battle is. I don't even remember the boring parts then (and tehre are ALWAYS boring parts in Hong Kong movies. The Killer suffers from the 5th or 6th viewing becasuse of those damn guilty conscience scenes and musical montages) and I even forgive Woo for the first subpar movie (I almost forgive Chow Yun Fat for being in City on Fire, but I can't take it too far now)
So buy this movie. Or wait until a better DVD comes out as indicated by another reviewer. But definitely go see it if it comes to a theater near you.
Violent to absurdity...but still fun...
First off, this is, in my opinion, no way better than the original A Better Tomorrow. I mean the plot is really all over the place, or non existent depending on perspective. The character development is nothing really if you've seen the first one. I mean, the relationship between the two brothers isn't any different than in the first movie. It's nice to see the characters revisited, but there's nothing new here. It takes a minute for the signature John Woo style of action to really kick into gear, but when it does, man he goes all out with this one.
Seriously, they must've killed like 100 guys in the final shootout alone. It was surreal, hilarious and exhilirating all at once. There were moments where about 15 men would walk out of a room and all get mowed down with machine gun fire abruptly. And of course there's plenty of sliding, diving, two gun action we've all come to love from John. Chow Yun sliding down the stairs was great.
Speaking of Chow Yun, his acting's great as always. You can tell he's just having fun with this part, though. Like, after the first one he told John "I don't want a really serious character." His character, Ken, means business, but he's not like in the first movie when he was Mark. Mark was the cool killer turned lackey with a limp, and you sympathized with him. That original story was about as tearjerker as an action film gets with exceptions to The Killer and The Professional. In this sequel it's not taken quite as seriously, in spite of moments that in a less outrageously violent movie would be considered tragic. And I'll always love how John Woo isn't afraid to kill any main character. You never know who's gonna get it.
Bottom line, it's good fun. Not great fun, but good fun.
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