I wrote this during my senior year in college, and sadly lost the final version that featured tons of quoted research. I cleaned up this draft, and hopefully you will find it an insightful read.
Hong Kong director John Woo is a recognizable name to many American audiences. Here, his films feature intense action spectacle ranging from explosives to gunfights. Woo’s success abroad can be traced back to A Better Tomorrow. A Better Tomorrow was his first entry in the Hong Kong gangster genre, and was the first to showcase what have become Woo’s trademarks and signature style.
The purpose of this paper is to exam A Better Tomorrow. This analysis focuses on its role and innovation within the action film genre. There are several facets to observe within this film which established John Woo as a premiere director and catapulted Chow Yun-Fat to stardom.
The story of A Better Tomorrow is the story of loyalty and betrayal. Set in Hong Kong during the 1980s, two friends Ho Sung (Ti Lung) and Mark Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) are established gangsters. As they climb the ladder, they are double crossed by Shing. Ho gets placed behind bars in Taiwan, while Mark is crippled and reduced to remedial work. Once Ho is released, he is faced with pressure from Shing to reenter the criminal underworld while his brother Kit (Lelslie Cheung) is a promising police officer whose promotions are denied due to mob ties. Kit eventually forgives Ho, and the three heroes clash with the gangsters.
All of this clashing is stated visually through violence. With a running time of 132 minutes, 19 minutes are used for scenes of action violence. Of those 19 minutes, 15 feature guns. With the exception of dreams and assassination attempts, the use of guns as a means of violence fall into sequence of fights involving many gangsters with many guns used. These sequences are best described as gun fights. A Better Tomorrow features four gun fights. Each fight takes place under unique circumstances, be it the point in the film, the characters involved, the opposition, or the editing.
The first time a firearm is discharged in A Better Tomorrow, occurs at the 17 minute point. Here, Ho and Shing are trapped during a deal gone bad. The guns used here are mostly handguns. One shooter, the lead thug, uses a shotgun. This shootout started and completed within a small space; approximately one 30×30 square foot room. This conflict also occurs outside of Hong Kong, in Taiwan. As far as the degree of violence found in this sequence is not on par with the other gun fights. Though seven lives are taken, the only gunshot victim to show a sign of blood is Ho, who is merely wounded to a minor extent. This fight lacks the length, and styling characteristic of those which follow in the film, suggesting that it was simply a devise to advance the plot and leave the showcase fights to be handled by Chow Yun-Fat’s Mark Lee.
With Ho jailed, Mark gets his chance and revenge and A Better Tomorrow presents ushers in schematic for action. Mark enters a Hong Kong restaurant in slow motion. He is accompanied by a female hostess. With her held in his arms, he manages to plant handguns in flower pots both literally and figuratively. This is intercut with a room of men enjoying dinner with several female companions. The door slides open with a close up of Mark, while the use of slow motion persists. This is followed by a reaction shot of the wanted man, then his point of view as Mark draws a gun and fires. Mark shoots at another man seated by the table. As one of the gangsters draws a gun to the side of Mark’s head, Mark introduces his until now unseen second pistol. The fight has now escalated. Now a duel wielding Mark successfully empties both pistols into the men, while avoiding the women.
During the altercation, each shot is edited alternately in shot-reverse-shot, but with a twist. Half the shots with Mark in the frame are done at 24 frames per second, while the other half are at 90. All of the reaction shots of the victims are at 90 seconds. The use of slow motion juxtaposed with the traditional frame rate, leads to an interesting effect on the audience. This technique makes an otherwise short conflict, much longer. In turn, it also leads the viewer to believe that Mark is faster than anyone else in the scene. With his movements accelerated through comparison, Mark is able to leave the room unscathed.
The speeding bullets are not visible at any point of this scene, but there are visual clues to their destinations. In the first shootout of the film, Woo included a sparse amount of blood. By contrast, this scene uses a liberal amount. As Mark fires, blood explodes from his victims in both the front and rear of the torso. This creates the illusion of entry and exit wounds; erasing from doubt in the mind of the audience that a give individual has died. This along with a musical cue, ends the gunfight. However, the primary target did survive. As soon as this is realized, he crawls to the door and shoot Mark in the leg. This allows, Mark to make use of his planted Berrettas, as he then finally disposed of the target. Unsure of himself, Mark stands over the corpse and brutally fires away at the face. The shots are heard and not seen; demonstrating what can be considered a kill in the world of A Better Tomorrow. Foreshadowing to Mark’s demise is also given. In this example, it is shown that Mark makes assumption of the death of his target, a habit which leads to his demise during the finale.
With vengeance on his mind, Mark Lee sets out to produce the evidence needed to implicate Shing. With a hobble to his step and gauze over an eye, Mark makes his way to the counterfeit operations hideout. With evidence of a reel to reel tape in tow, Mark is at a stand off with several gangsters. Though treated as a cripple for much of the film, Mark is able to move with as much if not more agility than ever seen before.
The gunfights in many John Woo films are met with equal praise as well as criticism. The praise is based on the poetic movements and timing. While in many cases with makes for compelling cinema, criticism against this style rests in realism.
By placing two guns into the hand of Chow Yun-Fat, Woo established a trademark for himself that is often times imitated to this day. To better understand the ways guns work in films, it is important to understand how they function in reality. In A Better Tomorrow, Mark Lee is shown using two Berretta 92s, one in each hand. At times, he is amazingly accurate despite the drawback of not having two hands to steady his aim. Prior to A Better Tomorrow, contemporary gunfights found in both Hollywood and abroad films featured characters who each fire one gun at a time.
In Hollywood the norm for a modern day film of shooting a pistol with two hands, was set to simulate reality as observed by the model of law enforcement. In modern times, urban conflict is not likely to be resolved through the use of rifles. These guns offer the best accuracy and are employed by the military, but they are large and not easily hidden. A pistol, or sidearm, however is considered a concealed weapon. A smaller size allows for ease of transport making these handguns accessible to police and highly regarded by gangs. For a plot device, a handgun can be revealed to create tension. Though Hong Kong law forbids the ownership of handguns by civilians, there is a model that allows for the plausibility of the action in A Better Tomorrow.
Hong Kong is the only city in China to arm its police with handguns. This model follows that of the United States, and lends plausibility to the gunfights found in the heroic gangster genre. Without armed police within the region of the action, there is little to no possibility of finding gangsters with such weapons. It can transversely be inferred that police are armed, because of the escalated threat level. This makes Hong Kong a unique and interesting location.
Though it is less likely to find armed gangsters in Hong Kong as opposed to the United States, the physics behind their firepower remains the same. At no time in A Better Tomorrow does a character make an effort to fire at another while gazing down the sight of the gun. Arms are extended but, the view of the shooter is distracted. This suggests urgency. A good analogy is to equate their uses of a firearm to that of a television remote control. As a seated individual would raise a remote, guide it to the general proximity of the television; these characters aim a pistol. The TV viewer may not take their gaze of the picture, as he or she depresses a button on the remote. Similar to the use of guns in A Better Tomorrow, Mark Lee doesn’t need to view his guns to make use of them. Much like the remote as well, the feedback from these guns is minimal; no characters develop a shoulder or hearing loss. Unlike the remote, a handgun is far less forgiving in accuracy. Aiming without the care of precise attention will result in all but assurance of a miss. A Better Tomorrow’s world is based in fiction. There, accuracy is either enhanced or diminished based on a character’s importance to the plot.
A Better Tomorrow was a phenomenal success both commercially and critically in Hong Kong. It wasn’t long after its Hong Kong release, that Woo was commissioned to create a sequel.
It wasn’t until the release of The Killer, that A Better Tomorrow was recognized in the West. It is also in the West, that the film receives more insightful criticism. Many of the films moments are dissected into being representative of hand over era Hong Kong. One such example can be found in the scene in which Ho takes a wounded Mark to a hill above the city. Mark comments that the beauty of Hong Kong “won’t last”. ***
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