10 Reasons Why “A Better Tomorrow” is The Best Movie Evah ™
1. Chow Yun Fat + Leslie Cheung = Angsty manaliciousness.
2. Chow Yun Fat walking in slow motion planting guns along the way.
3. Pouty!Leslie
4. Leslie’s theme song. WITH melancholic harmonica!!!
5. The scene where Ti Lung is watching Chow Yun Fat from across the street, and Smarmy Upstart Boss comes out (in slow motion) and throws money on the ground at him!!!*
6. Man-bonding in the parking garage.
7. The piss-drinking story, complete with toothpick and fierce CYF eyes. I mean, I liked Crouching Tiger and all, but CYF never really tapped his full potential there. He totally did in BT.
8. Leslie taking matters into his own hands at the end. Way to go, poutyboy!
9. The prison/police school montage - best. montage. ever.
10. The music audition with Tsui Hark - back when he and John Woo were friends.
*This scene was parodied to perfection in The Romancing Star, with Eric Tsang playing the Smarmy Upstart**
**I had a student once who decided that he was going to write his end-of-the-term paper - the long one, worth most of the grade - on style in John Woo movies. I was enthusiastic about this, until I read it and realized he hadn’t watched any John Woo movies. There is no way possible to watch the John Woo movies he mentioned and NOT talk about the use of slow motion in a paper on film style in John Woo movies. None.
March 18th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Ohh…how could you forget Chow-Yun Fat’s bloody hand pushing Leslie’s pouty face away after being shot thru the back of the head???
*gasp*
I think that stops my heart every time I see it.
But yeah…best. movie. ever.
(A close #2 however, is Hong Kong 1941)
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March 19th, 2007 at 7:12 am
I thought about that one, but the whole CYF-brains splattered everywhere got it cut from the list.
You know, I’ve never actually watched HK 1941. Must get it on the list.
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