A Better Tomorrow 2

A Better Tomorrow 2
Directed by	John Woo
Produced by	Tsui Hark
Written by	John Woo Tsui Hark
Starring	Chow Yun-fat Dean Shek Ti Lung Leslie Cheung
Music by	Joseph Koo Lowell Lo
Cinematography	Wing-hung Wong
Editing by	David Wu
Studio	Film Workshop
Distributed by	Golden Princess Film Production Limited (Hong Kong) Gordon's Films (USA)
Release date(s)	17 December 1987
Running time	104 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese English

A Better Tomorrow 2 (Chinese: 英雄本色 2; pinyin: Yīngxióng běnsè èr; Jyutping: Jing1hung4 bun2sik1 ji6) is a 1987 Hong Kong action crime drama thriller film directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-fat, Dean Shek, Leslie Cheung and Ti Lung.

A follow-up to its popular predecessor, A Better Tomorrow. A Better Tomorrow 2 is notoriously known for its over-the-top violence, exaggerated blood and gore, and body counts nearing the hundreds.

Although the film was initially panned for its rather campy feel and a much more soap opera-like plot than its predecessor, with Chow Yun-fat going on an over-the-top tirade in one point of the film over a bowl of rice, it is now considered a cult classic, with many fans considering it as equaling the first A Better Tomorrow.

Director John Woo and producer Tsui Hark had disagreements over the focus of this film. Tsui felt that the film should focus more on the Dean Shek character. This led to the film being edited in halves by both Tsui and Woo. Woo has all but disowned this film apart from the final gun battle.

Plot

A few years after the events of A Better Tomorrow, Ho is drafted from prison by federal agents to spy on his former master, Lung, who is suspected of heading a counterfeiting operation. Ho considers this traitorous and declines with disgust. He changes his mind when he discovers that his younger brother, Kit, now an aspiring police lieutenant, and expecting a child with his wife Jackie, is on the same case. Ho takes the job to protect his brother. After being framed for murder, Lung seeks Ho's help. Ho helps him escape to New York, but Lung becomes temporarily insane after receiving news of his daughter's murder and witnessing his friend being killed. Mark's twin brother, Ken, comes to the rescue, and the two go into hiding in a hotel. After a shoot-out with mobsters, Ken and Lung find themselves cornered. Lung snaps out of insanity and gets Ken and himself out of trouble. The two return to Hong Kong and link up with Ho and Kit. The team then discovers that one of Lung's former employees, Ko, is responsible for trying to kill Lung. After doing some reconnaissance in Ko's mansion alone, Kit is fatally wounded, roughly at the same time that his child is born. He is rescued by Ken and manages, just before he dies, to name his child (in Chinese, "the Spirit of Righteousness"). The remaining three take revenge on Ko by attacking his mansion during a meeting with a counterfeiting client. At the climax of the film, an enormous gun battle ensues. The three kill approximately 90 others (including one man shot by Ken approximately 40 times). All three are terribly wounded. After killing Ko, the three sit down in the mansion and are surrounded by the police led by Inspector Wu, the officer who asked for Ho's help in bringing down the syndicate.

Cast and roles

• Chow Yun-fat as Ken "Gor" Lee
• Dean Shek as Lung Si
• Ti Lung as Sung Tse Ho
• Leslie Cheung as Sung Tse Kit
• Emily Chu as Jackie Sung (Kit's wife)
• Regina Kent as Peggy Lung (Lung's daughter)
• Kenneth Tsang as Ken (The taxi manager from the first film)
• Ng Man-tat as (Mr Wong) during the early stage of his film career
• Siu-ming Lau as Inspector Wu
• Shan Kwan as Ko Ying Pui (The main antagonist)
• Man Yan Lung as Chong (Ko's cold blooded hitman)
• Peter Wang as Sam (Lung's priest friend in New York)

Theme song

Will Rush Toward Future Day (奔向未來的日子)

• Lyrics: Wong Jim
• Composition and Arrangement: Joseph Koo
• Performance: Leslie Cheung

Music cues

This film contains music cues from other films. Here are the films and the songs that were used:

"Birdy's Flight (From 'Not One Of Us')" Composer: Peter Gabriel From: Birdy (1984)

"Leo Gets It" Composer: Gary Chang From: 52 Pick-Up (1987)

"The Set-Up" Composer: Jerry Goldsmith From: Extreme Prejudice (1987)

Stunts

This film was notorious for stunt mishaps. Chow Yun-Fat was almost blown up when the explosion outside the mansion door was more powerful than expected. Some of his hair was singed, and he was blasted forward. The shot in the film is his real reaction. Director Ronny Yu was the stunt double in the warehouse scene. He wrenched his back after slipping on water puddle while carrying Dean Shek. Also the stuntman for Leslie Cheung who performed the speedboat jump landed incorrectly and broke his foot.

Mike Abbott appears at the hotel shootout scene. Mike Abbott was known by appearing in some ninja movies made by Godfrey Ho.

Film references

• The group of teenagers come into Ken's diner dressed in duster jackets and aviator sunglasses. When Ken's inquires as to their appearance, they respond that they are dressing like Brother Mark. The previous film in this series was so popular that young people in Hong Kong dressed like the lead character that this style of attire became known as "Mark Gor Lau", literally, "Brother Mark's coat", and the scene comments on that trend.
• In the 1993 movie True Romance, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, Patricia Arquette's character is watching A Better Tomorrow 2 on TV.
• One scene in the movie references The Godfather. In The Godfather, characters who purchase, eat, or are shown with oranges are killed as sort of a foreshadowing. In a scene in A Better Tomorrow 2, every major character is offered a single orange as snack before a job. They all refuse the orange, and every major character is either dead or heavily wounded by the end of the movie.

Post production

A Better Tomorrow 2 originally ran about 160 minutes. Tsui Hark insisted that the film should be shortened to a commercially viable length (which in Hong Kong is considered under 120 minutes,so theatre owners could show the film at least 8 times a day). Woo refused to make any cuts, so Hark secretly cut stuff out while Woo secretly put the things Hark had cut out back in. The two had a falling out and could not agree what should be cut and what not. So they had the film recut by the "Cinema City Editing Unit", which meant that they sent each reel of the film to one of Cinema City's editors, who would then go to work on his particular reel. There was no overall supervision whatsoever by either Woo or Hark... Each of these editors just cut things out as they saw fit, then they returned the reels. What they came up with is now the official version of A Better Tomorrow 2...Woo's "Director's Cut" was only shown once to film executives in Hong Kong.

External links

• A Better Tomorrow 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• A Better Tomorrow 2 at AllRovi
• A Better Tomorrow 2 at Rotten Tomatoes