A Better Tomorrow 2012

John Woo’s 80’s classic A better tomorrow is relocated and retold here in modern day Korea. Is it a worthwhile exercise? A younger generation will no doubt enjoy and be introduced to a great classic; an older generation may howl and scream that one of the greatest Asian gangster films ever made has been sacrilegiously regurgitated into a weak remake. Who’s right?

On it’s own A Better Tomorrow 2012 is an excellent Asian gangster films that have the usual themes of loyalty family betrayal greed and violence. It tells of Hyuk (Jin-mo), who lives the fast life as a high-ranking mobster in Busan, South Korea with his closest pal, fellow mobster Lee Young-Chun (Seung-heon). Hyuk is haunted by the memory of leaving behind his younger brother Chul (Kang-woo) and mother as they attempted to flee into South Korea from North Korea. Hyuk is set up by the police and jailed. Three years later, he is released and travels back to Busan to find his younger brother Chul now a high-ranking police officer. Hyuk tries to earn back the trust of his brother, but rejection and betrayal are hard to forget. Things come to a head when Young-Chun pulls Hyuk into doing one last gig. It happens to be the case that Officer Chul is in charge of, and the three brothers meet again one final time.

As it’s an Asian gangster movie even the most casual film watcher will have an idea that very little is going to work out for any of the characters involved. All the actors bring to the film the right attributes to tell the story well. Seung-heon Song is excellent as the charismatic, but deadly loyal Lee Young-Chun and Han Sun Jo as the boss of the gang who always seems comically one step behind everyone else. So where does it fall down? Simply in that it’s the not the original and that could be an article all on its own. The film introduced to a western audience to modern day Asian action movies when most of what had been seen before was the Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan genre of films. A slew of movies followed and influenced a generation of film makers all over the world, most notably Quentin Tarantino. Reprising roles of such greats likes Yun Fat Chow is as like trying to play Harry Callahan in a remake of Dirty Harry and no matter how good you are it’s a hell of a goal. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to see A better tomorrow 2012 as it’s an excellent movie with great action scenes but once you have done, do yourself a favour and get the classic 86 version as well.