A Better Tomorrow 2...not so good

A Better Tomorrow 2 - John Woo - 1987 - 4/10

Summary:

Ho (Ti lung) has been serving time for killing boss Shing at the end of "A Better Tomorrow." The police try to recruit Ho to go undercover and find out if his friend Lung (Dean Shek) is the source of a new surge in counterfeiting. Ho refuses. But when he finds out his younger brother, Kit (Leslie Cheung), has gone undercover to infiltrate Lung's shipbuilding business Ho agrees. While Kit's wife (Emily Chu) is pregnant, Kit has to put his family life aside to seduce Lung's daughter Peggy (Regina Kent). However, Lung is framed for killing a rival gang leader who has been trying to take over Lung's shipyard and Ho has to smuggle Lung to New York. In New York, Ken (Yun-Fat Chow), the twin brother of Mark is operating a Chinese restaurant and trying to repel the advances of the local Mafia who are roughing him up for protection money. Lung arrives in New York but becomes mentally unhinged and Ken has to literally nurse him back to health so he can regain his sanity so they can return to Hong Kong and take back what is his.

Critique:

My biggest problem with this movie is probably my own fault. That is, that I thought Dean Shek's Lung was supposed to be the new Yun-Fat Chow character but I also wasn't sure if Lung was supposed to be Mark. So I was pretty confused for awhile, almost until Yun-Fat Chow actually did come onscreen. With that out of the way, I guess I can focus on all the substantive reasons why this movie was a disappointment. I guess I was expecting a little more considering the first one was so good and EVERYONE, the director, the writer, the producer, the actors ALL came back. But the movie makes little sense and is connected by too many coincidences and happenstances. Also, by now, I'm pretty sick of Kit - why won't he go away. Basically the movie just seems to have senseless action scenes whenever it realizes the movie is getting to be THAT bad. I wanted a lot more out of this movie. It would have actually been more respectable if Mark would have lived instead of inventing this twin character for Yun-Fat Chow to play. It reeks of cheap soap television instead of badass Hong Kong cinema.

Verdict:

The first one is all you need.

If you liked this movie, see...
...A Better Tomorrow
...The Killer
...The Replacement Killers