A Better Tomorrow (the first one) was rather boring, I have to say. I never quite made it all the way through. The sequel, however, is far more engaging. True, it has cheesy slow motion action sequences and tons of melodrama (and melodramatic music in the background), in addition to the old "the guy I play is dead so I'm going to play his mysterious twin brother" trick. If you've ever wondered, after having seen weak entries such as
Broken Arrow,
Face/Off, and
MI:2, why Quentin Tarantino and so many other American directors revere John Woo, you have to see
ABTII. The gun fights are incredible! There are no happy endings (without reservation), and Chow Yun Fat does a great scene with an Italian mobster in which he says, "Rice is like my mother and father. Don't fuck with my family." Warning: if you don't like guns, explosions, blood, the reading of subtitles, or the perpetuation of gender stereotypes, you may want to shy away from this film.
--A.Y.