A Better Tomorrow - Cultural Impact

Cultural Impact

  • After the film, teenage boys in Hong Kong wore long dusters in emulation of Chow's character even though the climate was sub-tropical. In fact, in colloquial Cantonese, trench coats are called "Mark Gor Lau" (literally, Brother Mark's coat).
  • The Wu-Tang Clan has a song named after the film on their 1997 album Wu-Tang Forever.
  • The anime series Cowboy Bebop has many references to the film series, including the last fight between Spike and Vicious in the episode "The Real Folk Blues (Part 2)" which parallels the final shoot out in "A Better Tomorrow 2".
  • The character Mr. Chang from the anime series Black Lagoon is closely patterned after Chow's character Mark in both visual design and characterization.
  • Chow wore Alain Delon sunglasses in the movie. After the movie, Hong Kong was sold out of Alain Delon's sunglasses. French star Alain Delon sent Chow a personal thank you note.
  • In 2009, Empire Magazine named it #20 in a poll of the 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen* (*Probably)
  • Lupe Fiasco's song "Heat Under The Babyseat", which talks about violence in the youth, mentions A Better Tomorrow as a source of violent influence.
  • In 1994 Indian film director Sanjay Gupta unofficially remade this film into a highly acclaimed and popular Bollywood film called Aatish: Feel the Fire (meaning: The Fire) that starred Sanjay Dutt, Atul Agnihotri, Aditya Pancholi and Shakti Kapoor in the lead.
  • In September 2010, prolific Korean filmmaker Song Hae-Sung released Mujeogja (Invincible) which was an official Korean language remake of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. It opened to positive response at the Korean box-office. John Woo and Terence Chang also serve as Executive Producers for Mujeogja; which was a joint production between South Korea, Japan and China.

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