Written:    
John Woo
Chang Hing-kar 
Leung Suk-Wah
Directed:    
John Woo 
Executive producer: 
Tsui Hark

Cast:
Chow Yun Fat
Ti Lung
Leslie Cheung
Emily Chu Bo-Yee  Kenneth Tsang Kong  Waise Lee Chi-Hung  

John Woo

Supercool mobster Mark (Chow Yun Fat) is a man of honor in a world of crime. His partner Ho (Ti Lung) is having second thoughts because kid brother Kit (Leslie Cheung) is an ambitious cop. Kit remains blissfully ignorant until Ho is double-crossed, their father is murdered and Ho is imprisoned. Mark swears to avenge his friend, but his right leg is shattered in the ensuing shoot-out, a legendary scene of sensationally choreographed gunplay. When Ho leaves the slammer he finds the crippled Mark reduced to scrubbing dirt off the gang boss' stretch limo. Both are determined to go straight, but neither Kit nor the crimelords are done with them yet. Finally, Mark, Ho and Kit must face their destiny in a blazing crossfire of conflicting loyalties and hot lead.

It is quite faithful (the story is similar) remake of "The Story of a Discharged Prisoner" (Yingxiong Bense, 1967; Directed:Lung Kong; Starring: Lee Cheung-hung, Lung Kong)

I don't speak Chinese, but those first two characters together (Ying Xiong) mean 'hero' and the last (Se) is 'color'. The third one (Ben) is more difficult to translate. So I just believe True Colors of a Hero is just right.

 The distributors didn't want Chow Yun Fat, they tried to convince Tsui Hark to cast someone else as Mark Gor.

Chow: "Because, at the time, they think of Chow Yun Fat as mainly on T.V. Movie directors don't prefer T.V. actors and actresses in because they think the actors and actresses in T.V. have lousy acting! Also, another thing, at that time, my box office is not so good, so they think: Don't let Chow Yun Fat play the role..."

A Better Tomorrow was released in August 1986 and it ran for an unprallalled two months and became the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong's history. A new genre - slick, bloody gunplay movies, celebrating the same brotherly codws and heroic virues as Chang Cheh's historical epics of the 1960s and 1970s - was definately born..