Ying hung boon sik III: Zik yeung ji gor

Plot synopsis:
In 1974, during the final days of the Vietnam War, Mark Lee arrives in Saigon, intending to bring his uncle and cousin Michael Cheung Chi-mun back to Hong Kong with him. After arriving at the airport, Mark is confined by corrupt security guards who strip and attempt to rob him, but he is saved by Chow Ying-kit, who seems to have some measure of influence.
Mark and Michael later encounter Kit in a nightclub, where they discover the woman is a criminal and gun runner. Kit takes an interest in the cousins and invites them to accompany her on a deal with a local Vietnamese warlord. The deal goes bad, but the three escape. Kit is impressed with the way Mark and Michael handled themselves and helps them escape Vietnam, taking them under her wing.
Over the next few months, Kit trains the cousins in her business and marksmanship. Mark and Michael develop an attraction to her and Kit is attracted to Mark. Despite his feelings, Mark does not reciprocate Kit's affections to avoid hurting Michael, who thinks Kit is in love with him.
Kit manages to secure safe passage for Mark, Michael, and Michael's father back to Hong Kong. The three return and start a new business there.
The leader of the arms smuggling company (and Kit's former lover), Sam Ho Cheung-ching, returns after a three-year absence when he was presumed dead. Jealous of Kit's relationship with Mark and Michael, he plots to kill the cousins. Ho sends a bomb to the business, which kills Michael's father. Ho and his men capture and beat Mark and Mun, warning them to stay away from Kit.
Kit expresses her regret for Michael's father's death and to share her feelings with Mark, which he reciprocates. Ho returns to Vietnam, taking Kit with him, to complete the deal with the Vietnamese warlord encountered earlier in the film.
Mark and Michael follow Ho back to Saigon, intending to kill him. Mark steps off the plane attired in his iconic outfit as seen in the first A Better Tomorrow: black duster, sunglasses, and matchstick in his mouth.
At an abandoned temple, where Kit meets Michael to give him two plane tickets to leave Saigon with Mark they are unexpectedly surrounded by Viet congs. They engage in a shootout with them. While trying to escape from them in a jeep driven by Pat, due to the bumpy ride, Michael falls off the jeep and gets caught in an explosion. Mark confronts Kit in her hotel concerning Michael's assumed death accusing her of betrayal and keeping secrets from him. Then enraged by her answers to his accusations he slapped her a few times. Before he leaves her room, he told her he wants nothing to do with her.
Ho and Kit head to their deal with the Vietnamese warlord. The warlord attempts to double-cross Ho. A shootout ensued. Mark came in the room dual wielding two M-16 rifles, intending to take his revenge on Ho after the shootout between the warlord and Ho died down. During the shootout between Ho and Mark, Kit is severely wounded by one of Ho's men and Ho is killed by the warlord.
Michael, who survived the explosion, arrives with Pat to help Mark make his getaway with the wounded Kit. The four are pursued by the warlord in a tank, but Mark manages to destroy the tank with explosives, killing the warlord.
With Kit dying, Mark and Michael rush Kit to the embassy, where a mass evacuation is taking place due to the Fall of Saigon. Showing Kit's travel pass to the guards, the three are granted aboard on the last chopper leaving the embassy, which lifts off just as the crowds rush in past the gate and the North Vietnamese flag is raised.
Succumbing to her severe injury, Kit dies in Mark's arms. Cradling Kit's lifeless body, Mark contemplates as the chopper flies off into the sunset.

Tags: tragedy, violence

Review:
While loyal John Woo fans (like myself) may feel offended that a sequel was done without his involvement, this film stands alone as a true masterpiece of Tsui Hark's.
Anita Mui is fantastic and lends real credibility and sensitivity to this film as the woman who teaches Yun Fat's "Mark" how to both "be cool" and use 2 guns at once.
A Better Tomorrow III:Love and death in Saigon (1989) is an underrated masterpiece.
The film takes place during the final days of the Vietnam War. Mark Go (Yun-Fat Chow) and his friend (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) are in South Vietnam on a business trip and also to meet Leung's father.
Mark Go learns a lot from Ms. Mui as she teaches him how to survive in a brutal environment.A great film from the ever reliable Tsui Hark.
I say,"So what!" The film is an essential action film from the master Tsui Hark.Highly recommended.Anita Mui also performs the songs in the film.
If it goes in a different direction (like in this case) it runs the risk of alienating a lot of loyal fans.Not sure how many of you knew the storyline prior to watching the film.
I remember a scene in the original ABT where Mark talks about the "old days" of making counterfeit deals with Ho in Indoesia!!
Prequel to John Woo's first two "Tomorrow" films.
Tsui Hark directed this sequel (1989) to John Woo's classic heroic bloodshed films Better Tomorrow 1 and 2 made couple of years earlier, and this third installment is more a prequel than sequel.
They meet mysterious female assassin Kit (the beautiful sweetheart Anita Mui) and both of the men are attracted by Kit. The film concentrates pretty much on the war infested Saigon and the hell that's free in there, so there isn't any particular plot in the film, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting.I think there's couple of strong scenes of social criticism, mostly the horrific "customs scene" at the airport when Mark, Mun, Kit and Mun's father try to travel away from the country and are abused by the corrupted custom officers.
Fortunately Tsui's attitude isn't this time as underlining as in his Once Upon a Time in China (1991), and Tomorrow 3 is therefore perhaps more noteworthy film as commenting society.The visuals are also brilliant as can be expected from this director.
The ending is little irritating due to it's prolonged gun battles and fire power, and I think it should have stopped little earlier in order to be more effective finale for the otherwise pretty great film.Better Tomorrow 3 is not as great and interesting as Woo's films, but still this is much more than average effort from Hollywood, and due to Tomorrow 3's great look and visuals, I give this gladly 8/10 rating and think this is among the greatest films Tsui Hark has directed himself.
A Better Tomorrow 3 takes place during the Vietnam war and goes back to show how Mark became the professional killer that he is.
This beautiful romantic action-drama classic is just another proof that Woo has NOTHING on Tsui Hark's genius !!.
this film has something Woo never had, and that's a very good idealistic, detailed but at the same time a complex screenplay that is also opening the door for many various interpretations of the viewer as far as characters beliefs and motivations go; very long spontaneous but also intense dramatic moments led sometimes by the three characters at the very same time, brilliantly structured moody cinematography and "many" distinct characters differing one from another with their own issues interconnected throughout the story, and most of all the ability telling a story mainly only by the images and songs.
Although, one thing one could find lacking here that many fans of the first two films were affected by, which are the action sequences that this film has clearly no such interest in or simply not being as focused on as many Woo's films, though, such scenes appear here now and then if sporadically but when they show up they're coming with a sense of the unanticipation, shock and philosophical meaningness.
As one biographer wrote: "In The Killer Woo shows two men firing guns, back to back, a sort of enclosed circle; Tsui Hark has the same shot in A Better Tomorrow III, except that it's Ho and Kit!
Likewise, Tsui has no interest in copying Woo's "bullet ballet" style of directing action sequences; instead, Tsui emphasizes the characters and the situations.
Woo directs action for the sake of the action; Tsui directs it for the sake of the story!" Why people usually prefer the first one to this much dramatically superior film was already many times explained before and one of the things very often mentioned is the element of the commercialism and the appeal well-disposed to the western tastes that was ironically and effectively sold out.
This time the meaning of the film is not about the traditional honor, loyalty or brotherhood we've already seen in a never ending line of similar maudlin homo-erotic movies; Here we are introduced to the very meditative themes about the complexities of love and equality, and above all Tsui Hark makes a much more ambitious effort as he brings these themes to a world swallowed by chaos.
Otherwise he brings plentiful other themes resonating with the modern time, among the politics, the fear of the 97 handover and the sprawling examination of gender roles, the film's background centers on the celebration of the Chinese nationality by the usage of the mutual heritage in favor of all or the Chinese notion of fate circling around all the main characters, basically involving Anita Mui's meditative Kit pondering over all her doomed life that's conversely gonna reflect the life of Fat's Mark Gor later in his gangster period (previous sequels -- mind you).Each 24 or 20 frames per second are filled with an incredible ingenious sense for the timing and meaningful idea that both come along making a totally explosive impact on the mind of the viewer, either verbally or visually.
The film employs a jaggy, documentary style to capture the chaos of its time; then later in more quiet moments of the film's time-frame it's creating a lovely montage of Mun, Mark and Kit shopping, using gradated filters for a dreamy, romantic feel that's bringing a sort of allegorical meaning that life continues even under the worst situations, and can also continue with joy.There's another thing that makes this timeless masterpiece different from other installments: this is one of the very few films that can never be REMADE.
Different to John Woo's original two films, but it's almost as good.
The action scenes although lacking the finesse of the John Woo trademark mayhem, are still high velocity and powerful.
Though people have been saying how much of a disappointment this prequel is, I watched it anyways,  being a fan of the first two movies.
And to be fair,  it wasn't a bad experience at all.I can see how people would be frustrated going in expecting more of the same and getting an action/drama movie instead,  but I was told that it was less action and more romance beforehand.
Which is an above average movie overall.The Good:  Chow Yun Fat returns to his character from the first film, which is great.
No,  there are no scenes like the finale of A Better Tomorrow 2,  but come on,  did you really expect that kind of scene again?
The ending of A Better Tomorrow 2 is so spectacular,  can you blame the prequel for not trying to top it and go elsewhere instead?
The chemistry between Chow Yun Fat's Mark and Anita Mui's Kit is great,  especially with Kit.
Great job.The not so good:  Many people accuse John Woo's films of totally ignoring women.
But when it comes to A Better Tomorrow,  many people criticize part three for placing a woman in the mix.
There should be more women representation is some of John Woo's work,  but with this series,  many fans prefer a team of friends,  guys,  more specifically Ho,  Mark,  and Kit from the first in the series.
I would rather have had part three be a true sequel picking up where the second left off [with Ho and Mark's brother Ken (also played by Fat)] and tell about there struggles and how they are getting over the events of the last movie.
Then you can put Anita Mui in the storyline somewhere and have her help them out in some way.Overall,  A Better Tomorrow 3 is pretty good.
Action plot was a mess, whoever gave Hark Tsui a go on this movie instead of John Woo should be fined .The main actress was gorgeous though , with that - 5/10.
We get to know how Mark Gor(Yun-Fat`s legendary ultracool gangster from ABT1) became a gun-toting gangster in Vietnam in the 1970`s.
The action is directed by Tsui Hark, a very good actiondirector, but not a patch on John Woo.
I expected the same classic shootouts and drama like the first two "Better Tomorrow"'s.
The back cover said that this movie was about "Mark" becoming the hit-man he was in "Better Tomorrow 1".
These action scenes cannot be compared to John Woo's sequences.
Mark Gor (Chow Yun Fat) goes to Saigon to fetch his cousin and uncle during the Vietnam war.
Directed by Tsui Hark (who produced the first 2 movies) instead of John Woo. Not as great as the first, but worth a look.True to the "Better Tomorrow" series, as well as the whole John-Woo-aesthetic, the movie's about male-bonding.
But this movie also focuses on romance: Mark and his cousin Mun (Tony Leung Ka Fai) both fall for sexy gang leader Kit (Anita Mui).It was great to see a woman as a gangster for once, and Anita Mui was cool as hell.
Her neon-orange-red lips practically glow and bleed into every scene she's in.Of interest to fans: the movie shows Kit teaching Mark how to shoot a gun, and explains where Mark got his trademark coat and sunglasses.Also notable is that this movie contains Chow Yun Fat's most authentic kiss with a woman.
"A Better Tomorrow III" is a desperate attempt to make some cash out of the legendary character Mark Gor, the three words before "III" in the title and the man they call Chow Yun Fat. It would have been somewhat more watchable if they changed this film to another chapter in the lives of Ho, Lung and Ken Gor but director Hark Tsui made the crucial mistake of making this a prequel: way back to the Vietnam war.
Chow Yun Fat still makes another charismatic mark on the film but the action scenes are really terrible if you just watch this after something like Hard-Boiled.
You should do better than this...But non-fans of CYF and the BT series will be pleased with the character study of Mark Gor and the off-beat romance he has with Anita Mui. It's not a complete disappointment to mainstream viewers, but to loyal Hong Kong action fans: YES..
Would've been a bit better if John Woo had directed it.
In 1986, director John Woo and producer Tsui Hark teamed up to make a box office hit, 'A BETTER TOMORROW', which became a huge success.
In 1987, John Woo directed a sequel called 'A BETTER TOMORROW II' and in 1989, producer Tsui Hark, directed the prequel to the popular smash hit series, 'A BETTER TOMORROW III'.
Well, from the star rating I gave it, it means it's the best in the series although it's got almost nothing to do with the first two films and it obviously does try to copy the John Woo style of directing but that doesn't stop it from being a great movie.Set after the Vietnam war, Cheung (Tony Leung Ka Fei) goes to Saigon so he could bring his uncle and his cousin, Mark (Chow Yun-Fat) back to Hong Kong.
However, while Cheung is in Saigon, he meets a beautiful woman named Chow (Anita Mui), who is a dangerous gang leader, who could help Mark and his uncle return safely to Hong Kong.The action scenes are really good, although they are no match to the Woo standard, what else is great about the film is its haunting but very beautiful theme song sung by Chinese pop star, Anita Mui. If you liked the first two movies, you might be able to enjoy this one, even though it has got almost nothing to do with the series..
Chow Yun-Fat reprises his iconic role as Mark Lee, the epitome of cool gangster immortalized in the first A Better Tomorrow film, directed by John Woo. This time around we get a prequel, depicting Mark's early days in the midst of the Vietnam War as he tries to rescue his uncle and cousin from amidst the horrors of war, in the process meeting a woman and learning the skills he would later use to rise to the top echelons of the Triad.It's a workable plot and definitely something anyone who has seen the original films would be interested in seeing.
The problem is that they changed the director from John Woo to Tsui Hark, and unfortunately he doesn't have the skills of the master whose boots he's supposed to fill.
John Woo still produced the film and you can see touches of his style in the film, but overall it feels like a cheap imitation.
The action scenes lack the impact of the previous two films, the characters are not as deep or as well-defined, and the overall story lacks coherence and tension.Now, that being said, it's by no means a bad film.
It still has Chow Yun-Fat playing Mark Lee, which alone makes the film worth checking out if you liked the originals.
And the new characters are not bad either, with Anita Mui's Kit being an excellent female protagonist, who teaches Mark everything he would later use in his life.The film isn't as good as it could have been.
Tsui Hark, who did us a favor in not directing part one of this series, is here to remind us, that it better that way.
Since John Woo(ldn't) want to have any of this sequel/prequel or whatever you like to call it, they had to find somebody else.
Watch "Bullet in the Head" instead to see, how this could've looked like, if Woo directed it!
Now this is a prequel to the first film, so rather than ABT 3 I might have suggested they call it A Better Yesterday, but I wasn't there at the time.This time Woo is out and Tsui Hark is in the director's chair, (leading to the worst film in the trilogy).
Is it any wonder that Woo and Hark were once peers and that only one went on to direct internationally while the other stayed in Hong Kong making films?
(In Tsui Hark's defense Woo's only real strength is action sequences, his films are otherwise no better or worse.
It is like Tsui Hark said I can't promise you'll enjoy it, so I'll make it bloodier and more far fetched.A young Mark (Chow Yun Fat) goes to Vietnam in 1974 at the tail end of the Vietnam war to meet his cousin Mun as he released from prison for being involved in the black market.Mun only turned to crime to assist his ailing father to leave Vietnam and return to Hong Kong, but he got caught up in the wrong crowd and ended up in jail.
A Better Tomorrow III: Love And Death In Saigon (Tsui Hark, 1989) **.
I had watched the previous two entries in the series also featuring Chow Yun-Fat but it's been too long to really make comparisons, except to say that I recall enjoying them.
Actually a prequel, set in Saigon at the time of the Vietnam War, this was made with no involvement from the director of the earlier films (John Woo).
However, it's bogged down by a dreary romantic triangle plot line...Even if I was disappointed by this third film in the series (there's yet another follow-up, from a new director, called RETURN TO A BETTER TOMORROW [1994] - which is available at my local DVD outlet...but I don't think I'll be renting it anytime soon), I still have another Tsui Hark epic waiting to be watched this week, SEVEN SWORDS (2005), which does sound promising....
Even if he wanted to push the envelope on the series by making a prequel, he should've done a wayyyyy better job.The storyline takes Mark back to Vietnam, where we learn his life as a younger, much less "gangly" individual.
It also has a take on his romantic days with a mysterious mob boss' girlfriend, Anita Mui, and the love square they all shared with the Japanese boss and Tony Leung.Let's talk what's important 1st in these movies.
Whatever you can expect in a late 80's, early 90's action Hong Kong film = it's all there.
Tsui Hark definitely made it through with the gun fighting scenes.
THEN he's somehow involved with Anita Mui. I'm sorry, but some scenes where Mark is caught up in love made me lose respect for the character of Mark that I know.What makes these ABT films is through the theme of brotherhood - in this movie, there simply wasn't enough - or it just wasn't standing out.
This is the prequel to Chow Yun-Fat's bullet ballet A Better Tomorrow, where Mark Gor travels to Saigon near the end of the Vietnam war to get his cousin, Mun (Tony Leung Kai-Fai) and uncle out of jail.
He falls in love with female gangster Chow Ying-Kit (Anita Mui), and her dangerous ex-boyfriend complicates the mission.Like the original movie, this movie has a powerful plot from start to finish, from the intense drama between the Mark Gor and his cousin to the war suspense in Vietnam.There is plenty of mind-blowing action, some to the point that is a little overkill.