Chinatown Video releases for December 1999
Weasel Alert: I occasionally do a bit
of work for Chinatown Video.
A BETTER TOMORROW 3 (1989) Rated R.
Rental.
After A Better Tomorrow 2, original director John Woo proposed
a prequel to the first film to be set in Vietnam. Tsui Hark went ahead
and directed the film himself, and this is the result (it's also known as Love and
Death in Saigon). Tsui and Woo teamed up again for The
Killer in the same year, but after that they fell out, and consequently Woo made
his own Vietnam story with Bullet in the Head. So much for the background (taken
from Hong Kong Babylon, a book you should buy) - on with the review. Chow
Yun Fat reprises his original role as Mark Gor, and this film tells the story of
how he fell in love, was taught to shoot, and earned the famous trenchcoat. Anita
Mui is the lover, shooter and coat-giver in question. This film does not have the
same level of blood-soaked macho desperation as the first two, but Anita Mui gives
the film a warmth that perhaps the other films are perhaps lacking.
CITY WAR (1988) Rating TBA. 96 mins.
Rental.
This quick number was clearly banged out for a buck in the heroic bloodshed craze in
the late 1980s. Director Sun Chung has the aid of A Better
Tomorrow stars Chow Yun Fat and Ti Lung, but
unfortunately they should have enlisted John Woo as well. It's painfully
obvious that you can't just expect to strike box office gold by dumping a fine cast into a
sodden mess of stiff direction, meandering script and cheesy 1980s canto music (anyone for
a Cantonese "You Can Leave Your Hat On" with new Chinese lyrics while Chow
Yun Fat fevers up the dance floor with the single most awkward sex scene ever
filmed? I didn't think so). The story has cop Ti Lung and his family
being menaced by a triad fresh out of jail nursing a grudge and a bullet wound in the
never-you-mind. Yun Fat is also a cop, his role is neatly split between
weak comic relief and weak love story, with a bit of mad-eyed bloodlust at the end. Things
finally pick up with an action-packed last 20 minutes, with more bullets and less glitter
balls, but it's all a bit too late to save this turkey.
