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John Woo / movies / A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987) / Story

Written:
John Woo
Directed:
John Woo
Executive producer:
Raymond Chow

Cast:
Leslie Cheung
Ti Lung .
Dean Shek Tin
Chow Yun Fat
Kenneth Tsang Kong

A BETTER TOMORROW 2
The blistering high-octane sequel to the hugely successful A Better Tomorrow. Chow Yun Fat is Ken Gor (Twin brother of Mark, Chows character in first part of ABT), a former gang boss returning to Hong Kong to avenge the brutal murder of an old friend's daughter. Deploying an incredible arsenal of death-dealing firearms, backed up by reformed mobster Ho (Ti Lung), police detective Kit (Leslie Cheung) and the grief-crazed Lung (Dean Shek), Ken takes on an army of Triad gangsters in an orgy of retributive violence. A Better Tomorrow offers very much of the same as in first part, but there is some very wild action scenes.

Woo doesn't like this because
1) he wanted pay more attention to gang wars and also the characters of Chow Yun Fat and Leslie Cheung. But studio wanted to help Dean Shek, so they made ABT 2 as his story.
2) Original version was almost longer than two and half hours. Theaters didn't want that long movie, so Woo had to re-edit it and trow away 40 minutes in one week period. Woo took half of the material and Tsui Hark took rest of it. When they edited it they didn't even know what each other were doing. This is why some scenes just don't match together.

The film's first half shows signs of heavy cutting, as too much plot is squeezed in, but the final hour, climaxing in a 10-minute gun-and-grenades assault on the bad guy's villa by Chow, Ti and Dean Shek, has an elemental, Sergio Leone-ish power that beats anything in the more tightly-wound original. Of course original is way better film with good story and everything, but just like John Woo said in some interview - when he wanted to say something positive about ABT sequel - it has some really great action scenes. Not a big surprise because action director was no one else but Ching Siu-Tung, man behind Chinese Ghost Story serie and many other great films.

The famous rice-scene where Chow Yun-Fat asks from a white guy: 'You don't like my rice?'. That white guy was Louis Roth.

Hong Kong release (1981)
Standard Mandarin Romanization Title:
Yingxiong Bense Xuji
Standard Cantonese Romanization Title:

literal translation of Chinese title:
True Colors of a Hero II
Official English Title:
A Better Tomorrow 2

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