Just so...so bad

Dreadfully Boring

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Sung Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) has landed in prison after the events of the first film. He is offered an early parole if he rats on his mentor Lung Sei (Dean Shek), who is believed to have taken over the Hong Kong counterfeiting business. Initially Ho is reluctant to accept the offer, but once again he sets out to protect his younger brother Kit (Leslie Cheung), who has gone undercover in order to expose Lung.A Better Tomorrow II is cut from the same cloth as the first film. It has scenes of deep drama seamlessly intermixing with brutal and prolonged action scenes, all the while the character tote guns, wear long coats and look damn cool smoking cigarettes and wearing sunglasses. But, whereas the original film could be taken somewhat seriously and was rather somber in tone, this film decides that it would rather be as bizarre as it possible can be. It's simply one weird, uncomfortable and odd scene after one another, but whereas that would ruin a lesser movie, here it kind of adds to the film's appeal. It's a weird film, but in a good way.Though yes, it is somewhat off-putting that they casted Chow Yun-fat once again. The way they introduce his new character is perhaps one of the strangest "What am I watching?" moments I've seen in a long time, but again, once you get over the initial surprise, it's actually kind of fun.And on the technical side of things, John Woo doesn't disappoint. The action scenes are once again splendid to watch, all the character are easily identifiable and given enough development to shine. The plot is a bit more convoluted this time around, but it's still easy enough to follow that you won't mind.All in all, A Better Tomorrow II isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's still definitely worth a watch if you're fan of John Woo and liked the original.

The original A Better Tomorrow is one of my all time favorite films. The sequel, not so much. The serious change in style really hurts this muddled sequel. The main focus of the film seems to be undecided, obviously it should have been on our two lead brothers in the first film, Kit and Ho. But they seem to take a back seat to newbie Dean Shek, and the returning Chow Yun-Fat. SPOILER ALERT Now wait a minute... didn't Chow Yun-Fat's character die at the end of the original A Better Tomorrow? The character of Mark Gor was definitely dead at the end of the original, so Chow Yun-Fat returns to play his twin brother! That makes perfect sense, but it would have been better if there was any mention of him in the original movie. Instead, it feels like Chow Yun-Fat was just shoe horned in to meet popular demand. Our new character Ken is cool, although he is quite different to his brother. He more resembles Tequila, the character Mr Chow played in Hard Boiled, both physically, and in the way he acts. Apart from the lack of focus, A Better Tomorrow II is just too silly to properly be compared to its predecessor. Dean Shek's character seems to be able to casually drift in and out of sanity, and with Chow Yun-Fat yelling at him and throwing food all over the place it's hardly going to help him come back to health. This was actually one of those scenes that was so bad it was good. There are various other things that don't make sense, the majority of them being when Dean Shek's character went insane, which just shouldn't have happened in the first place. Now I watch A lot of action movies, and I always love a good stupid movie. But this is the last thing A Better Tomorrow should be, and so it left me disappointed. Still, the film has it's high points. Why else would I have given it a 7? The ridiculous "eat the rice!" scene is hilarious and memorable. The action is a huge improvement over the first movie, the ending action scene is one of the best of John Woo's entire career. Every action scene here is standard Woo, and then some, so they definitely get the job done. The movies drama isn't all bad, the story is pretty interesting (for this kind of movie). Still, in these areas, the sequel isn't a shadow of the original movie. The acting is all relatively good, not really any complaints (except when Dean Shek went insane). All in all, A Better Tomorrow II is a good movie, but it's lack of focus and serious change in style really hold it back, along with its silliness. It's widely known that there was a lot of behind the scenes squabbling that went on between Woo and producer Tsui Hark. And I can't help wonder, if Woo had just been left to make the movie we wanted, what kind of sequel would we have gotten?

Still directed by John Woo, still with the same cast as the first, only different.To recap: Ho is a former criminal gone straight at the request of his late father. Kit is his little brother, a policeman, now undercover.Mark, played by Chow Yun Fat, is now dead, but Chow Yun Fat was famous by this time so he returns in daytime soap style as Mark's twin brother Ken.Lung, the guy who previously sold Ho out and cost him a prison sentence, now runs the crime gang that he was a member of. Right. So Kit is now undercover trying to bust Lung, who wants to go straight for the sake of his daughter. Kit tries to crack onto the daughter in the hope that it will give him access to Lung, only Kit is married with a pregnant wife, and he doesn't tell her his plan.Ho is in jail, only he is released on the proviso that he also go undercover to uncover dirt on Lung so he can be busted, which he only does once he realizes Kit is in danger.Still with me? It only gets more convoluted and unnecessary from here.So Lung is inadvertently involved in a murder so he flees from Hong Kong to the US. His former 2IC Ko takes the reins of the crime gang and decides that with Lung dead he has free reign, so he sends assassins to the US to bump off Lung and kills his daughter in Hong Kong for good measure.And this goes on for another hour! Needless to say A Better Tomorrow 2 is long-winded, melodramatic and altogether too confusing, yet it is a better film than one thanks to John Woo hitting his straps in directing action sequences.It turns out that Ken (Chow Yun Fat) gets involved with Lung in the US (where he proves that he shouldn't have tried to speak English on film, at least at that time). When the bad guys destroy Ken's restaurant he decides to take Lung back to Hong Kong, where they team up with Kit and Ho to take down Ko.(Why are they suddenly buddies? After all Kit hated Ho in the first film, Lung sold out Ho and caused him to go to jail, and Ken has just arrived on the scene? So they can have a big Woo-ey shoot out at the end of the film. That's why! The fight scenes are far better than the first film, the same amount of bad guys get killed but in a more aesthetically pleasing manner. Woo has been described as directing operatic violence and this looks like one of the early incantations of that.Final Rating - 6 / 10. Too long and way too complicated. But it is an action flick, and the action scenes are better than Better 1, so I give this the edge.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

This sequel to the 1986 predecessor is fantastic. Although Woo wasn't too happy about making a sequel and he didn't really care much about the film whilst making it, I think it totally worked and I think it's a lot better than the original. This time, the twin brother of Mark, (a character played by Chow Yun-Fat from the first A BETTER TOMORROW) Ken (Chow Yun Fat), must team up with undercover cop, Kit (Leslie Cheung), and his brother Ho (Ti Lung) and a good friend named Lung (Dean Shek) to avenge the death of Lung's daughter who was murdered by a Triads. Like the first film, it's got a hard storyline to follow, however, it has some fine acting that makes you care for the characters and it has some awesome action scenes (most notably, the final shootout). But if you liked the first A BETTER TOMORROW, then you'll enjoy this one even more.