A Better Tomorrow

A Better Tomorrow
directed by John Woo



One of the three great John Woo/Chow Young Fat films, A Better Tomorrow is one of the most influential action films of the last few decades. Until The Matrix set the new tone, so reliant on CGI, that now dominates, Woo was the director that people copied. And The Matrix itself borrowed from this film: every sweeping shot of a leaping gunman with two pistols is going to have a little Woo in it. Heavy on sentiment that would be laughable in a western film, and taking the buddy film ethos to a nearly homoerotic extreme, A Better Tomorrow still has enough thrilling setpieces to make it a classic.