Gangster Season: A Better Tomorrow (Dir. John Woo, 1h35m, 1986)

"Heroic bloodshed" is a term coined by Rick Baker, the editor of fanzine turned magazine Eastern Heroes, which, from its formation in 1988 to date, chronicles the Eastern Action Hero in his, (and indeed her) myriad forms. It's thus fitting that it's Baker who arguably coined the phrase that typifies action in the cinema of Hong Kong from the mid-80s to early 90s, describing it as a genre of "Hong Kong action film(s) that features a lot of gun play and gangsters rather than kung fu. Lots of blood. Lots of action.". No director has codified that genre better than John Woo, no film better than A Better Tomorrow, a tale of two brothers on different sides of the law on the island, that almost singlehandedly made Woo's career as an action director, propelled Chow Yun-fat to Woo's muse, and a major action star, and launched an entire genre that remains influential around the world as a darker, bloodier, and less sympathetic view of the gangster as anti-hero.

John Woo is burnt out-it's the mid 1980s and he's been, by this point, a director for nearly twenty years. Worse, he feels trapped-his previous few films have been financial disappointments, he feels a complete lack of creative control, and he's beginning to feel exhausted by the career he's chosen. Fortunately, his friend and fellow director, Tsui Hark, now also a fairly major producer, steps in to help, rekindling a pet project that Woo has had for a long time, a mix of a two remakes; one, of The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), in which the triads attempt to recruit a safecracker after his release from prison, the other, of the 1979 film The Brothers (itself a remake of 1975 Indian film, Deewaar), in which a pair of brothers take very different paths to their goal of gangster and policeman.

Into this mix of two Hong Kong cinematic milestones, Woo adds another element, and one that is, at least in Hong Kong action cinema at this point, entirely new. He is going to match the morality and feality of traditional Chinese folk stories, with the balletic action of Busby Berkley musicals, and the violence of Sam Peckinpah that would catapault Woo to global superstar, and, from Hong Kong, a hot property who would turn 90s action cinema in the West on its head. He is about to essentially codify what we know and love as "heroic bloodshed"-a concept that, visually has travelled to the west with Woo (and beyond, most notably in The Matrix (1999)) but has rarely, with the possible exception of the Hong Kong-aping John Wick (2014-date) series, translates its message.

A Better Tomorrow opens with one of the key pillars of the genre-style, and it is here that John Woo meets his muse. Sung Tse-Ho (Lung), is nowhere to be seen, and instead, we are introduced to his best friend, confidant, and bodyguard, Mark Lee (Yun-Fat). Mark is the role that made Yun-Fat an icon, an impossibly cool, long-coated figure who we first see eating noodles, before joing Ho deep in the bowels of their true enterprise, a colosal, and immensely powerful money-forging empire, the duo grnning as their ill-gotten wares are printed. This stylistic cool, this hyper-modern style, this masterful introduction culiminates with perhaps the most iconic shot of the entire movie, with Mark lighting a cigarette with one of the bills alight, the flame reflected in his sunglasses. It's the epitome of gangster cool, and, as the duo leave the carpark of their business in a Rolls Royce, to meet up with other representatives of criminal underworlds to trade counterfeit currencies, and to bank the fake Hong Kong so the duo seem utterly confident, all-powerful, and utterly, assuredly, cool. The only way is down.

Against this, Woo places his morality play of the two brothers; against the criminal Ho, Woo places Kit (the late great Leslie Cheung). Unlike his brother, Kit is dutiful, carrying around his girlfriend's cello as she attends auditions, looking after the brothers' ailing father, and training to join the police. Ho, though, keeps his life of crime from his brother, supporting his efforts, and, eventually bowing to his father's wishes to leave it for good after one last job-this begins a theme that we will see throughout the film, and which typifies the genre, that of a fealty to parents and superiors, and holding to tradition even as the world rapidly changes around them. However, here, the violence, the bloodshed of "heroic bloodshed" rears its head-Ho is doublecrossed, in a brutal gunfight, along with Shing (an enjoyably nasty performance from Waise Lee), a low-ranking triad who Ho has taken under his wing, and Ho turns himself in, surendering to the police. Worse is to come, as Ho and Kit's father is promptly murdered by a triad member, his dying words begging Kit to forgive his brother, whilst, midway through getting revenge on the triads in Taiwan, Mark is shot, and his leg crippled..

We jump forward three years, and we see, as Ho is released from prison, that the brothers' fortunes have utterly changed-Ho is still driven by the desire to go straight for his now deceased father, rejecting one of the triads' request to return, and begins work at a taxi company, run by fellow ex-con, Ken. However, he soon finds that Mark, now walking with a permanent limp, is even more destitute, living off the scraps, and occasional tossed bills of the Triads-Mark is driven, compared to Ho, by revenge, determined to get his own back on Shing, a revenge that Ho will not-almost cannot-share, despite Shing attempting to pull him back into the triad lifestyle, turning up at one point to taunt the duo of Ho and Mark at a restaurant. Kit, for his part, rebukes his brother's attempts to make peace, and, in sharp comparison to his brother, is utterly driven, and almost blinded by his rage, by his attempts to bring down Shing.

Despite Ho's every attempt to turn over a new leaf, so the inevitable pull of his criminal past begins to affect those around him-Shing attacks Ho's company, has Mark brutally beaten, and even entrap and leave Kit badly wounded, and finally, inevitably, Ho has to retaliate-again, the morality tale reappears-violence begets violence, and attempting to escape it only draws one deeper into it. Mark and Ho proceed to raid their former employers, steal one of the tapes that form the elaborate plates for money forging, and, reeling from the revelation that Shing set both of them up, hand the plates over via Kit's girlfriend, to Kit, whilst stringing their former colleague along to gain money and a boat in return for the plates. Ho, determined to draw a line under their experiences, attempts to convince Mark to make his escape, to face Shing alone, only for Kit to become involved as he attempts to arrest Shing, and be taken as a hostage.

Mark returns to rescue Ho and Kit, gun-toting and back to his badass grandeur, rolling into action and proceeding to open fire at a small army of Shing's subordinates, with Kit and Ho joining him in winnowing down the vast numbers of triad members. All of this leads to a brutal, spectacular, but undeniably harrowing ending in which Mark is shot dead by Shing and, with his dying breath, implores the two brothers to make peace, bringing their cycle of revenge and animosity against each other to an end, albeit once again returning to the morality play concept, that their revenge must end in death, with Shing shot dead and the brothers walking towards the waiting police to hand themselves in. The brothers are reunited, and, despite the bloodshed, and the bodycount, Ho is redeemed.

A Better Tomorrow is, undeniably an epoch-defining picture-it made Woo and Yun-Fat's career, introduced both to a wider audience, and undeniably set Woo on the path, indirectly and directly, to change Western action movies forever. Heroic Bloodshed has seeped into almost every element of modern action cinema, and its impact, its influence, can be seen everywhere in the action franchise, and the ultra-dramatic, spectacular gunbattles, and utterly human-driven stories of the genre, have become a touchstone for cinema. But more than this, it remains an utter classic of the genre, a towering tale of two brothers divided by bloodshed, violence, and the criminal underworld of Hong Kong, as only John Woo can tell them:

Rating: Must See.

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