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Great scene #3 involves Ken and Lung holed up in a tenement building and Ken blasting his way out through scores of hit men, culminating in a face up backwards slide down a flight of stairs, which parallels nicely with Chow's slide down a banister at the start of Hard-Boiled. All the while, Ken is attempting to rouse Lung out of the near catatonia he has sunk into upon learning of the death of his daughter and the film's consensus seems to be that nothing pulls a grieving man out of a mental stupor than being shot at and forced to fire off a few return rounds in self-defense.

If Ken's first scene is the over-the-top-comic highlight, then Kit's last scene is the over-the-top tragic counterpart. Filled with bullet holes for the umpteenth time over the course of the two films, Kit is fading fast and knows he won't make it to the hospital in time to see his newborn daughter. He does have time to pull over from the road and call up his wife and talk to her and help her choose a name before succumbing to the grim reaper right there in the phone booth. Mightn't he have made it the hospital with all the time it took? Perhaps, but then we wouldn't have been allowed Great Scene #4.

ABTII ends with a ten minute hailstorm of shootouts, gun play, samurai sword/battle axe clashes and Mexican standoffs that result in a body count somewhere in the high three digits. It's all edited and played for maximum humor as the blood is excessive but not gruesome and explosions send bad guys flying recklessly every which way like always happened on The A-Team. The sequence begins with a slow-motion shot of three men climbing over a wall that I am fairly certain Spike Jonze structured his concept for the Sabotage video around, and only pauses for air once or twice so Ken can take a few bites off an apple. Perhaps Woo was venting steam here for the troubled production ABTII endured, but even its excesses feel light and giddy (in a manner of speaking).

Fui-On Shing deserves singling out for his menacing (and entirely wordless role) as the nameless chief enforcer for the bad guys. With a thinning hairline and cheap prescription sunglasses, he doesn't look intimidating but he is a fierce opponent and his tete a tete with Ken is the climax's highlight. Keep in mind that the dubbing (whether you watch in Mandarin or Cantonese) is preposterous, the English subtitles are often nonsensical - although at times so inappropriate they achieve a tone of Zen serenity - and the music score alternates between soulful Morricone-esque harmonica licks and knockoff Moroder-ish synth blasts. No matter. A Better Tomorrow II isn't any kind of masterpiece, but it is, for now, a former lover worth reaching out to once again.

In coming weeks: Two sequels from the early ‘90s and a pair from the early ‘60s. Three of the four are part of franchises that are still ongoing.

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