After breakthru international commercial success in '86 on A BETTER TOMORROW, director John Woo had an artistic Great Leap Forward on his next Hong Kong actioner, besting the previous film in every way.* Chow Yun-Fat leads a terrific cast of hitmen, cops and mob guys with a unified, even restrained, acting style that serves story rather than resumé. The setup riffs on, of all things, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION/’35; ‘54, that’s the one where an irresponsible playboy accidentally blinds a young, wealthy widow then spends the rest of the film trying to undo the damage.* Here, ultra-smooth hitman Yun-Fat eliminates an entire crime family in a restaurant private banquet room only to accidentally blind lovely nightclub singer Sally Yeh then spend the rest of the film trying to undo the damage . . . in between action scenes of mass killings. (So, a little bit different.) Yeh’s a fey, reedy thing, which puts the emphasis on serious bromance between Yun-Fat, his empathetic police opposite (Danny Lee), and the physically failing former hitman who hired him (Kong Chu, stealing the pic). A few things now look a bit dated technically, but Woo, especially in the first half, whips up the action set pieces of your dreams; the mass attacks in the second half are literal overkill. Then again, where would JOHN WICK be without this. Best of all is the first of two (you read that right, TWO) Mexican Standoffs for Yun-Fat and Lee, with the sightless Yeh somehow holding on without bumping into a gun. And with the two men each holding a cup of tea with saucer. (What genius thought to include the saucer?) A double-downer ending probably wasn’t needed, but Woo must have thought after killing off a battalion of mob-men, he needed some balance . . . sure, right. Very enjoyable 35 years on.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *See Woo’s strikingly quick maturation for yourself! https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/12/a-better-tomorrow-ying-hung-boon-sik.html OR: *Here’s where the set-up came from: John Stahl’s MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION/‘35. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/08/magnificent-obsession-1935.html
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