A Better Tomorrow (Original title: Le Syndicat du crime) (Leslie Cheung)

Show & Culture

New 4K restoration. Cheung plays Kit, a young police inspector torn between his duty and the bonds with his older brother, a former member of the underworld. As his brother tries to make amends after a prison stay, Kit must confront his own contradictions in a city plagued by crime. Directed by action master John Woo, the film is a founding work of the spectacular and gripping "heroic bloodshed" genre, mixing stylized shootouts, a sense of honor, and tragic melodrama. A work about downfall and decay, about forgiveness, "A Better Tomorrow" gradually gets a hold on the audience through its breathtaking pace, distinctive humor, themes and drama, complex script and uninhibited violence, which end in massacre and apotheosis. An absolute classic. Small screen superstar Chow Yun-Fat tries to leave sitcoms to launch into cinema. Ti Lung, emblem of the Shaw Brothers, has finished with kung-fu and big studios and seeks to revive his career. Finally, Leslie Cheung wants to break his teen idol image and would soon – alongside Chow Yun-Fat – become the most bankable actor in Hong Kong and most popular in all Southeast Asia. Even though it draws inspiration from codes of honor and nihilism from wu xia pian heroes, "A Better Tomorrow" is not just a nostalgic tribute to lost chivalric warriors, but rather a baroque critique.