A Better Tomorrow

1986 ‘英雄本色’ Directed by John Woo

Are the police above the law? I'll send my insurance claim to you.

A reforming ex-gangster tries to reconcile with his estranged policeman brother, but the ties to his former gang are difficult to break.

Ti Lung Chow Yun-Fat Leslie Cheung Emily Chu Waise Lee Tien Feng John Woo Sek Yin-Tsi Kenneth Tsang Shing Fui-On Wang Hsieh Leung Ming Chan Chi-Fai Kam Hing-Yin Tsui Hark

Alternative Titles

City Wolf 1, City Wolf, Alvo Duplo, Ying huang boon sik, 영웅본색, John Whoo's City Wolf, Gangland Boss, A Better Tomorrow 英雄本色 (1986), โหด เลว ดี, A Better Tomorrow (1986)

drama crime action

95 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★★ 3

After an up and down decade as a director for hire in the last days of the Shaw Brothers, working alternately in the wuxia and wacky comedy genres, John Woo finally hit it big in 1986 when he teamed up with Tsui Hark and the Cinema City studio to remake Patrick Lung Kong's 1967 drama The Story of a Discharged Prisoner. One of the most influential films of the past 30 years, A Better Tomorrow established the formal and thematic template for a new era of crime movie: everything that has followed, from Woo’s follow-up masterpieces The Killer and Hard-Boiled to the triad films of Johnnie To, to myriad international imitators, has in some way been a response to it.…
Review by LinusMxx ★★½

Hmm... this was pretty mediocre for me. Yeah, I know that A Better Tomorrow is hailed as one of the most influential (action) films that ever came out from Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I've watched this 4 days ago and honestly, I barely remember anything from the film other than the corny melodramatic score, the uninteresting drama, and some action scenes that were a bit of a bore. I love me some cheesy action flick, but this was not it. I'll probably need to watch John Woo's Hard Boiled this week as a palate cleanser since I've heard so many great things about it already.
sinegang weekly pick #25 by philip
Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) ★★★★ 8

John Woo's (heroic bloodshed) movies truly ushered in a new era for action cinema. Chow Yun-Fat is great here, but so are Ting Lung, Waise Lee and Leslie Cheung. Woo would come to refine his "bullets and melodrama" formula with each subsequent movie, but this is already an excellent starting point.
Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½

The last time I wrote here about this one, I talked about the relationship to A Story of Discharged Prisoner and Chang Cheh's brotherhood films. Rewatching it today, I was thinking about the signficance of the casting. Ti Lung was, of course, one of Chang Cheh's main leads of the 70se near the end of his leading man days and opposite to him there was Leslie Cheung who was along with Andy Lau, one of the two main romantic heartthrobs of the era. So old values and new values, Chang Cheh's chivalry and 80s new affluence. The cantonese title "The Essence of Heroes" is very Cheh and refers to Ti Lung and Chow Yun-Fat brotherhood while the english title A…
Review by Cinemonster ★★★½

ki·net·ic /kəˈnetik/
adjective
of, relating to, or resulting from motion.
John Woo’s relationship with Tsui Hark did not last very long, but it produced three of the most iconic films that Hong Kong ever produced (A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2, The Killer). A Better Tomorrow, the first of these, took director Woo from a boring and mundane recent resume to a hyper-kinetic career path that thrust him into the international consciousness. The film also introduced Chow Yun-Fat to the world, propelling him to superstardom in the East and stardom in the West.
The film follows two brothers who start the film on opposite sides of the law, and birthed many Woo and modern action cinema tropes. Among them: dusters, two-hand…
Review by Josephine (Docma) ★★★★★ 2

Make action films gay again.
Review by laird ★★★★½

Ambition is hell. Sacrifice is salvation. The iconic image of Chow Yun Fat lighting a cigarette with a counterfeit bill preempts the kind of flaunting, ostentatious cool imagery that would fill gangsta rap videos the next decade. They should've updated the 100 dollar bill to have *that* on the back.
Review by matt lynch ★★★★

Finally having seen STORY OF A DISCHARGED PRISONER it seems very clear that Woo took inspiration from its social realism and tried to marry that to a Shaw-style story of martial brotherhood using their shared shifting codes of honor as a bridge. Once the catalyst for those shifts was, say, a splinter clan trying to steal a powerful scroll, but now it's an economic bubble emerging from an influx of cheap foreign money. Either way loyalty and fraternity are the only things that end up having real, intrinsic value.
Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★½

I'm going to have a double feature of this & the pilot to Miami Vice and ascend into heaven one of these days
Review by David Chen ★★★½ 2

This feels like John Woo's "Blood Simple" in that it's an earlier work that has many of the nascent elements he would go on to perfect throughout his career. Not bad by any means, and the man love between the three main leads is palpable. Plus it's fun to see a star being born in Chow-Yun Fat.
Review by Anthonythefilmbuff ✌️ ★★★★½

A John Woo Classic! Not only a truly awesome action film it's also a pretty emotional film about forgiveness.
Review by Ben Peterson ★★★★½ 3

Unironically cool action scenes like Chow Yun-Fat speeding in on the boat or sliding across the floor on the roller cart thingy, and the sincerity of the character’s emotions toward each other (the reasons we all love John Woo movies), are both very much on display here.
Really noticed the synth score this time - which is used only a little bit in just the right moments. Once near the end, with the trio standing back to back carefully making their way through a field of bad guys, it hits just right.

Recent reviews

Review by Leo Pietro ★★★★

I remember seeing this on Jia Zhangke's Still Life with one of the character doing that iconic lighting up a cig with a dollar bill. Anyway this is one of the coolest action flick that I've seen so far. Makes me want to play Sleeping Dogs again and roam the neon-drenched streets of Hong Kong.
SINEGANG Weekly Pick #25
Recommended by: Philip
Review by peckinslaw ★★★★

Classic Woo
Review by Scott Reynolds ★★★★★

The most BROTHER movie ever made. With the most schizophrenic soundtrack on earth. Dig that harmonica straight out of a Burt Reynolds Gator McClusky movie. I couldn’t love this movie more.
Review by Noraa ★★★★★

John Woo made me cry like three times during this perfect blend of bursting action and wallowing melodrama
like literally masterful idk what else to say
Review by Andrew Woods

Brotherhood. Double fisting guns. Emotions running high.
THIS IS MY SHIT!
Review by al__m_s

What set John Woo apart from his imitators (and his later self) is that he knew the most powerful thing you can do with Chow Yun Fat as the slickest, coolest gangster in the world is make him a limping homeless man for the final 2/3 of the movie.
Review by Paroon ★★★½

A Woo's real classic.
Review by Marcus Finch ★★★★

Ok, listen, hear me out...
Essential John Woo... Criterion Box Set
A Better Tomorrow
A Better Tomorrow 2
Bullet in the Head
The Killer
Hard Boiled
You have my money yesterday!!!
Review by Josephine (Docma) ★★★★★ 2

Make action films gay again.
Review by UsernamePending ★★★½

"Você acredita em Deus?".
"Eu sou Deus. Deus é um ser humano. Qualquer um pode ser Ele se puder controlar a própria vida".
"Mas nem sempre você pode...".
"...Bom, ou você ganha ou perde".
Grande diálogo. Poderia ter uma meia hora a mais lá no início pra desenvolver melhor os personagens. Bom filme.
*
"Do you believe in God?".
"I'm God. God is a human being. Anyone can be Him if they're able to control their own lives".
"But sometimes you can't...".
"...Well, you either win or you lose".
Great dialogue. It could have had half an hour more, give or take, to better flesh out the characters. Good movie.
Review by Stephen Busch ★★★★★

Of course Woo is in top form, but Chow Yun-Fat is spectacular in maybe his best performance I've seen from him. Probably too fast-paced but it worked for me.
Review by juliangen ★★★½

Chow Yun Fat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!