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A
BETTER TOMORROW 3
AKA:
A Better Tomorrow III: Love And Death In Saigon
Year:
1989 Reviewer: Phil
Mills
A
prequel to the first two films, 'A Better Tomorrow 3' is set before Mark
Gor (Yun Fat) was such an expert with a gun and a charismatic
gangster. Cheung (Tony Leung) travels to Saigon at the
end of the Vietnam war with the aid of his cousin Mark, intent
of bringing his uncle back to Hong Kong. Here they meet
Chow (Anita Mui), a beautiful but deadly lover of gang leader
Ho, and the cousins instantly fall for her. Ho has
Cheung and Mark deported and kills their uncle but they return
to Saigon to get their revenge with Chow teaching them the
vital gun skills that they will need.
With
the departure of John Woo, this third part in the 'A Better
Tomorrow' series changed the subject matter from an
emotionally charged tale of three friends into a political
drama with the only slight connection being the inclusion of
Yun Fat's character. However, Tsui Hark does a commendable job on
his own, keeping it interesting throughout by using the film
to examine the state of Vietnam after the war which provides
an intriguing contrast to the typical war movie made about
this era. This could have been even better if Hark had
built on it with real character development but unfortunately
he spends far too much time setting the scene rather than
exploring his leads so the actors always tend to feel somewhat
superficial.
The
main downfall though comes in the form of the action which was
such an important factor in the previous instalments.
Here Hark clearly lacks Woo's talent for gunplay and places
the real emphasis on death rather than style which is in
keeping with the story but is disappointing for the fans.
This isn't aided by the inclusion of Anita Mui as Mark's
teacher as you can't help but struggle to imagine her as the
teacher of such an iconic character.
Overall
then, as a standalone film this isn't a bad effort with an
original choice of settings but as a prequel to 'A Better
Tomorrow', it just doesn't quite cut it.
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