Return to a Better Tomorrow (1994)

Pretty Good

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

But wait! What is Wong Jing's style? For those who have not watched other Wong Jing movies,you will see the styles of other Hong Kong directors spoofed/re-imagined/copied to perfection.This run-of-the mill heroic bloodshed exploitationer is elavated to near perfection due to director Wong Jing's subversively funny script (shades of Verhoeven's ROBOCOP) and his thunderous pacing. (A moment of silence is later abruptly disturbed by gunfire) I mentioned that he copied various director's styles. Don't believe me? Did you see the title? That's a very blatant reference to JOHN WOO himself! Later in the film, the two good guy gangsters do a "Killer" stance (standing and leaning on each others back while exchanging guns) followed by Lobster doing a "Chow yun fat" stance with two guns.There's even a scene where Chingmy Yau tries to imitate the restaurant shootout scene in "a better tomorrow".Most people don't see this, but there is also a sequence that spoofs Wong Kar-wai's visual style. Remember that sequence in "As tears go by" where Andy Lau fights a sadistic triad villain in a blue-lit refreshment stand? Remember Wong's shifty cinematography in that scene (later made famous all over the world via "Chungking Express")? Wong Jing has that scene too! This time you have Ekin Cheng fighting dozens of triads with a butcher's knife. The whole scene had me laughing because it was as if Wong Jing was basing the style of his next scene to a visual style of a Hong kong director.Anyway, the film maintains a very tense atmosphere throughout (thanks to sadistic villains in the presence of Collin Chou and Dick wei)and you can be sure that there could never be a happy ending for this kind of movie. The violence is stark, bloody and very brutal for a Heroic Bloodshed movie and I'm sure lovers of movies such as "The big heat", "The Assassin", "Full Contact" would surely love!! There's no point in hating this movie or even comparing it to Woo's classic film. It's just a fast and furious Herioc Bloodshed film that would leave you scratching your head.

A they say, this is not related to the John Woo Tsui Hark films from the 1980's. What this is is a messy crime drama that looks and moves like a poor cousin of many better crime films from Hong Kong. The story has gangsters bonding over various criminal acts in a typical blood and testosterone manner. Regrettably its not a bonding thats worth watching. The film looks like a good number of films from the decade before it was made with a high gloss/ high quotient of colored lighting for some effect. There are no characters only caricatures. The action is a confused mess, often reduced to ultra slow motion. To be honest I only made it through one disc of the VCD before I gave up. A waste of time and a dollar.

Let me get one thing straight before I start reviewing Return to a Better Tomorrow. It is in no way a sequel, or prequel to John Woo's class "A Better Tomorrow" starring Chow Yun Fat.Return To A Better Tomorrow is like many underrated Hong Kong action movies. It has great action sequences, good unknown actors and a healthy storyline. The great thing about Hong Kong movies is that no matter how small the budget, it always seems to pull off pretty well. Like Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" for example, even if it's not a Hong Kong action movie, considering it's budget ($7000) it's a great movie.Anyway back to Return to a Better Tomorrow. Although it has nothing to do with A Better Tomorrow, this movie does seem to take a leaf out of John Woo's classic film. Some of the scenes in RTABT do have a slight "deja-vu" feel to them, I thing the director was heavily influenced by A Better Tomorrow and decided to base a lot of the action within RTABT from Woo's ABT.The storyline has all the classic elements of a gangster/Hong Kong action movie: faith, brotherhood, trust, treachery etc, just like A Better Tomorrow, this is when RTABT does start to feel like it's been heavily influenced by the classic John Woo movie, none the less...it's still a great film, if underrated.This should please most action junkies out there, but please...don't consider it a sequel to A Better Tomorrow.7/10.

Although it has nothing to do with the A BETTER TOMORROW series, this movie still packs a wallop. It is a very stylish actioner with a very good performance by Lau Ching-Wan. This movie is sometimes very brutal even though it has been severely cut by the Hong Kong censors probably to avoid a category III rating. Of course, there's plenty of references to the works of John Woo but the director manages to not rip off his style and scenes. Here, Wong Jing told his movie straight-forward with flesh and blood characters and, for once, he avoids his typical low-brow juvenile humour opting for a more realistic and pessimistic approach. Highly recommended.