|
Review
by Kozo: |
Tsui Hark brings us this prequel to A Better Tomorrow,
which is noticeably without original director John Woo. Tsui
had a falling out with Woo, so Tsui himself directs Chow Yun-Fat
as his Mark character from Better Tomorrow 1. Mark
heads to Saigon 1974 and hooks up with his cousin Mun (Tony
Leung Ka-Fai). Together, he and Tony run into tough-as-nails
gangster Anita Mui, who takes a shine to the two boys. She
teaches Chow his gun moves and begins to fall for him, but
Chow is oblivious. Meanwhile, Mun gets the idea that Anita
fancies him.
This love triangle creates most of
the drama for a good two-thirds of the film before the darkness
of their world crashes in on them. It seems Anita’s last lover
was a gang boss, so he doesn’t take kindly to the idea of
Mark romancing his former flame. Even worse, the VC are taking
Saigon, so it isn’t the best time to be hanging around Vietnam.
The film is not bad, with decent gunfights and a generous
helping of slo-mo. Still, what’s the point? Unfortunately,
this film has very little to do with A Better Tomorrow (or its flawed sequel), so it pretty much comes down to this:
is Mark so fascinating that he needs his own movie? Not really.
Still, Chow is great and his pairing with Mui is a natural
one. (Kozo 1995) |
|
