An action-packed slog

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

As a huge fan of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow Trilogy, I decided to check this out on a whim, and it was better than I thought it would be, in summary the plot basically follows the original movie you have the main character Kim Hyuk (not as good as Ti Lung and his emotional and fantastic performance as Sung Ho),and his best friend Young Choon (Mark Lee) (whilst not as charismatic and cool as Chow Yun Fat's Mark Lee, the character is acted and played well) and Hyuk's younger brother Chul (Not a patch on Leslie Cheung god rest his soul, but still well acted) (Kit) rather than counterfeiters the pair are arms traffickers accompanied by newbie Tae Min (Shing) the difference being between the two brothers is that Hyuk had lost and abandoned Chul at a young age, where as Sung Ho and Kit, had a great relationship before their father died. And the plot follows on with their relationship, and the dodgy deal that leads Hyuk up in prison, and by the time he comes out he and his brothers relationship is even more broken as now Chul has joined the Police department and wants to make Detective, but because of Hyuk being an ex-con he loses his promotion, and Young Choon is crippled in the leg..the film is slightly longer than the original as this one barely has action sequences, more character development, but you can't help but already know their characters because of the original movie, in some scenes I was playing the original movies soundtrack in those scenes over the new scenes..same as the original movie, after Hyuk is out of prison and finds Young-Choon, Tae-Min is now a high ranking member of the syndicate and is untouchable, and Young-Choon wants his revenge, but Hyuk is reluctant..The final shootout: Just like the original, Young Choon grabs evidence that can take down Tae-Min, and Hyuk and Young-Choon form a plan to take him down, then Chul comes in, and the shootout begins. What let this movie down in my opinion is that they killed off Hyuk and Chul, we saw Young-Choon's death coming, but I'm very disappointed they killed off the brothers, as I would of liked to have seen a sequel to this movie just like the original ABT2 with Young-Choon's twin brother and Hyuk and Chul, but sadly it didn't end like that.Summary: Worth watching but the ending truly let's it down.

Review: This movie seemed like it was never going to end. So much time was wasted on the younger brothers remorse towards his older brother, which ended up getting on my nerves after a while and the fact that it didn't have English dubbing, also contributed to me falling asleep halfway through the movie. Anyway, the film's about a South Korean detective, Kim Hyuk (Joo Jin-Mo), who is also an illegal arms smuggler with his partner in crime, Lee Young-Choon (Song Seung-Heon). Hyuk has a younger brother, Chul (Kim Kang-Woo), who he left behind with his mother when they defected from the North. After spending time looking for his brother, Hyuk eventually finds Chul in a internment camp but Chul resents Hyuk for leaving him behind. When Hyuk finds out that his mother died when he left them behind, he's full of guilt and he tries his utmost to get close to his brother again but Chul doesn't want anything to do with him and his criminal activities. Hyuk then goes to Thailand with a new member of there crew, Jung Tae-Min (Jo Han-Sun) but Hyuk he's double crossed by Jung and the Thai gang, which leads to a big shootout. Hyuk surrenders to the police and ends up in jail for 3 years and when Lee finds out about the double cross, he heads to Thailand to kill the gang leader who had a hand in putting his best friend in jail. During the shootout, Lee gets shot in his knee, which makes him crippled, so with his best friend in jail and Jung in control of the smuggling operation, Lee ends up on the streets washing cars. When Hyuk is released from jail, he tries to make contact with his brother Chul, who is now a police detective but he still has bad feelings towards him. He also makes contact with Lee, who wants to get back into the business to take revenge on Jung but Hyuk is determined to go straight. He becomes a taxi driver to convince his brother that he is done with the criminal world but he is constantly pushed by Jung to rejoin the operation. Chul is determined to take down Jung but he hasn't got enough evidence to put him in jail. Jung then severely beats up Lee and he threatens Chul's life so Hyuk puts together a plan to kill Jung. Chul then has a suspicious car crash which has Jung's henchmen written all over it, so Lee takes it upon himself to steal some incriminating evidence to stop the feud. They agree to exchange the evidence for a large amount of money so they can escape on a boat but Hyuk has given the evidence to the police and he ends up taking Jung as a hostage so they can escape. When Chul turns up at the exchange, the whole situation leads to a massive shootout which also leads to some fatal consequences. I really didn't like the ending of this film and the whole "feuding between the brothers" concept, became very irritating. I really liked Lee's character, before he came a cripple and the shootout at the end was realistic. The actors also showed some deep emotion throughout the movie but Hyuk seemed like a lost puppy dog through most of the film. Anyway, it's not a bad movie and the storyline is very detailed, like a lot of Oriental movies but I was slightly disappointed with the outcome. Watchable!Round-Up: This movie was directed by Hae-Sung Song who has only directed 6, unknown movies in his career and it was written by the great John Woo, who also wrote and directed the original, A Better Tomorrow with Chow Yun-Fat. Budget: $8.7million Worldwide Gross: $10.7millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their action/drama movies starring Jin-Mo Ju, Seung-Heon Song, Kang-Woo Kim and Han Sun Jo. 4/10

A Better TomorrowI had seen a trailer of this film during a screening of Jackie Chan's "1911." I was keen on seeing, but it fell short of my expectations.Two brothers who have a thorny relationship try to gain each other's trust in the back drop of mafia trade.The Pluses: Great scenery of Busan, acting of the main characters, the action scenesThe Minuses: slow pace, confusing plot, a lot of gore and cussing Overall, A Better Tomorrow is great movie with some of its flaws. Don't watch if you have a sensitive heart.

I am a fan of Korean movies. Or so I thought after watching some of the legendary movies like the Vengeance Trilogy, Memories of Murder etc. However, it turns out, a lot of movies from Korea are just not for my taste as well.Usually, I find that out pretty quickly, i.e. I don't bother watching love stories and comedies for teens. But this one looked like an action packed movie a la "The Good, The Bad and The Weird". Not quite.It was a waste of a time. I wouldn't say it was amateurish in choreography or screenplay, I'd say it was terrible in terms of its script. Movie is so annoying, unbelievable. Like you know what stupid things one brother might do, and he ends up doing all of that. Also, script writing is so poor, that all these "gangsters" look more like high school gangsters than real life ones. Tears, crying, begging, pitying each other. A bunch of pathetic girlie gangsters => similarly pathetic movie.4/10