Starring Ekin Cheng as Chow You-Not-Yun-Fat
Return to a Better Tomorrow is a 1994 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Jing, starring Ekin Cheng, Lau Ching-wan and Michael Wong. True to its title, it's a rather blatant homage to the Heroic Bloodshed classic A Better Tomorrow, but while both movies shares similar themes of blood brothers, betrayal and drama among the triads, the movie is not a remake of the John Woo classic.
Mobster and triad hitman Tong Chun (Ekin Cheng from The Storm Riders) is highly respected among the mob, and shares a close bond with his underling and friend "Lobster" Tsui (Lau Ching-wan). Tsui is a single parent to a little girl, and struggles for a promotion in the triads' ranks, but gets along well with his superior Tong Chun. But when Lui, another mobster, frames Tong Chun for drug smuggling and forces him to leave Hong Kong, Tsui eventually climbs his way up in the mob while Tong Chun comes back to settle a score with Lui.
As a standalone movie Return to a Better Tomorrow is entertaining enough, as long as you try to overlook the parallels to the movie its attempting to cash-in upon, and don't try to compare it with the best.
Tropes associated with this work:
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Tong Chun manage to get his hands on some extremely sharp, armour-piercing bullets halfway through the film, which he used to gun down henchmen while pinned underneath a vehicle.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Tong Chun and Tsui in the restaurant shootout.
- Badass Longcoat: More than one character wears this, most notably Tong Chun. Considering the movie it’s based on and the genre it’s paying homage to, that’s expected.
- Berserk Button: Tsui goes into a rage brutally beating up anyone who tries to hurt his daughter.
- Break the Cutie: Happens to Chili, Tong Chun’s girlfriend, who tries to avenge Tong Chun only to get force-fed drugs and turning into an addict.
- Bulletproof Vest: Lui wears one in the final shootout, and gloats at Tong Chun that he will enjoy killing him. However Tong Chun kept the armor piercing bullets that he receives much earlier in the film, and uses that to kill his opponent.
- Darkened Building Shootout: Tong Chun’s opening action scene had him being pursued by thugs into a movie theater where a gunfight occurs.
- Dead Hat Shot: Overlaps with Censored Child Death, when Holland Boy executes Tsui’s little daughter all we see is the child’s hat flying aside.
- Destination Defenestration: The Loan shark, who gets tackled off a fourth-floor building through its window by Tsui. Somehow, he survives the fall.
- Downer Ending: Of the three leads, Simon the tritagonist is the Sole Survivor. Not to mention most of the supporting characters failed to outlive the credits, including Tsui’s young child.
- Ear Ache: Simon, who lose his ear halfway. He’s seen with a bandage covering his bloody left ear for the rest of the film.
- Eye Scream: While struggling with a thug that grabs him from behind, Tong Chun grabs a nearby receipt holder spike and shoves it into the thug’s eye.
- Gratuitous English: Tsui, after rising in ranks in the triads, is shown learning English from a Caucasian teacher while trying to expand his mob overseas. At one point when the teacher quizzes him, he remarks, "I'm not a wise guy, but I'm not a fool."
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: True to its inspiration, characters both good or bad are seen smoking throughout the film.
- Hourglass Plot: Tong Chun and Tsui swapped positions as the film progresses. Early on Tong Chun is a top mobster and elite hitman respected by the triads, while Tsui is just some flunky and low-tier grunt trying to eke a living. But when a double-cross results in Tong Chun ending in prison and Tsui barely escaping, Tsui eventually climbs among the other mobsters and a few years later, with Tong Chun released but no longer respected among the triads, at that point Tsui is a high-ranking mobster leading the syndicate.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Tong Chun ends up getting impaled on a bunch of construction bars in the final confrontation, although at least he manage to gun down Lui in a Taking You with Me ending.
- Kill the Cutie: In a moment that overlaps with Kick the Dog, The Dragon Holland Boy had killed off Tsui and had Tsui’s little daughter as a hostage. When Simon pleads with him to take him instead and let the child go, Holland Boy obliged, allowing the little girl to run crying towards her dead father… before suddenly changing his mind and shooting the child in the back of her head.
- Law Procedural: Briefly happens halfway in the film, when Tsui causes the loan shark to fall off a fourth-story building. The judge eventually goes in on Tsui’s favour being self-defense, leaving the loan shark completely dumbfounded.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Simon is a Non-Action Guy who is a friend of Tong Chun and Tsui, who spends most of the movie away from the action scenes and doesn’t want to get his hand dirty, but when Holland Boy ruthlessly kills off Tsui’s little daughter, finally Simon reaches his Rage Breaking Point and brutally attacks and beats Holland Boy to death in a Extreme Mêlée Revenge.
- Never Hurt an Innocent: Averted, possibly in an attempt to emulate earlier Heroic Bloodshed classic Hard Boiled, during the shootout in the Japanese restaurant the hit squad is shown gunning down patrons, waitresses and bystanders alike to kill Tong Chun and Tsui.
- Papa Wolf: Tsui, hands-down. When he caught the loan shark threatening his child, he confronts the loan shark mano-on-mano, beats the snot out of the loan shark, smashes a table over his opponent, breaks a bottle on the loan shark’s head before pushing him off a fourth-floor window.
- Pistol Pose: Tong Chun, in his first scene, points his pistol at the audience.
- Revenge Before Reason: Tong Chun’s girlfriend Chili (Chingmy Yau from Naked Killer) tries to avenge him by pretending to fall for Lui and draw a concealed pistol on him while making out. For her troubles she gets the snot beaten out of her and getting drugs pumped into her by Lui’s minions, resulting in her Descent into Addiction.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: During one shootout Tsui and Tong Chun both gains access to shotguns, and uses them to mow down mooks in droves.
- Struggling Single Mother: Gender Inverted, Tsui is a Struggling Single Father to his daughter.
- Use Your Head: Used by more than one character in fights as a last-ditch move. Simon notably use this attack to disorientate Holland Boy and turn the fight around.
- Would Hurt a Child: Holland Boy, Lui’s personal henchman, who brutally kills Tsui’s little daughter without batting an eye.
