Other Titles • A Better Tomorrow II • Yinghung bunsik II (1987) • Ying xiong ben se xu ji • Color of a Hero II • City Wolf 2 (1987) • City Wolf II - Abrechnung auf Raten (1987) • The Color of a Hero II • Ying hung boon sik II (1987)
Synopses for A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
1.
"I won't give you nothing, man; I give you shit," sneers charismatic superstar Chow Yun Fat, speaking English (with a De Niro accent) in his role as a New York restaurateur who won't knuckle under to the (Italian) mob. Chow plays the twin brother of the character he played in the original Tomorrow, the ultraviolent, ultraromantic ultrapopular Hong Kong gangster melodrama. And the blatancy of that device is a fair indication of the sequel's shortcomings--and of its screwy charm: this is a film that knows no shame. The bond between the natural siblings played by Ti Lung (as a reformed mobster) and Leslie Cheung (as a hot shot cop) still resonate tellingly. As a good-guy ex-thug driven batty by the slaying of his only daughter, real-life Cinema City studio chief Dean Shek gets to play a garishly extended "mad scene," foaming at the mouth, chewing on soup bones. A later episode in which a dying man crawls to a phone booth to call his wife (and newborn daughter) in the hospital must also be some kind of lurid first in the soap sweepstakes. The final 15 minutes could be the bloodiest single shoot-out sequence ever committed to celluloid. The story line hasn't been shaped to any particular purpose here, but the images have a golden Godfather-like glow, and this faintly anachronistic, all-stops-out wish-fulfillment approach to moviemaking still has a lot of power. --David Chute
(25 votes)
2.
Mark Gor's (Yun-Fat Chow) previously unmentioned twin brother Ken (also Yun-Fat Chow) joins forces with idealistic cop Kit (Leslie Cheung) and his now-reformed gangster brother, Ho (Lung Ti), both of whom return from the first film. Eventually landing on the shores of America, they embark on a complex path of revenge. Marked by intense (and in some cases, nearly over-the-top) gun battles, bloody rampages, and surprising bits of slapstick comedy, the film is director Woo's ode to the great and violent works of Sam Peckinpah.
(25 votes)
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