For about a month, the Chinese beaver meme made the rounds on social media. The Mandarin version first gained prominence as a silly and culturally impenetrable skit - the typical response to Chinese-origin memes that occasionally manage to make their way to the West. Reposts resonated with the “attitude” and “character” of the passionate beaver. The brief 20-second clip trended in motivational videos and even became popular merch.
Eventually, it came to light that the beaver was an animated remake of a scene from the Hong Kong movie A Better Tomorrow - a 1986 Hong Kong action film directed by John Woo (Face/Off, 1997; Mission Impossible II, 2000) and starring Chow Yun-fat (the beaver) with Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Waise Lee, and Emily Chu. This revelation didn’t do very much. For the average meme-viewer, knowing the origins of the beaver was nothing more than fleeting information, a question at pub trivia. It was still a Chinese beaver. A meme from China, that faraway place.
Yet, behind the seemingly-impenetrable veil of “Chinese” cultural production is a cult classic - one that exudes cultural complexity and simply cannot be reduced to flattened labels. Rather, A Better Tomorrow captures a critical facet of Hong Kong society during British rule, speaking volumes about social life, individual identity, and cultural values in a region that so often finds itself conflicted or contested. It also had a profound impact on global cinematography by setting a template for the “heroic bloodshed” genre, inspiring Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill), Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional), and the Wachowskis (The Matrix) - so much so that crime-noir-action films have now become a staple of Hollywood productions.
The movie follows Ho (played by Ti) and his close friend Mark (Chow), both senior members of a Hong Kong triad who run a lucrative business producing counterfeit American banknotes. Ho’s younger brother Kit (Leslie Cheung) is a trainee at the police academy and entirely unaware of his brother’s involvement in the underworld. Their ailing father - who knows about Ho’s activities - takes a turn for the worse and pleads for Ho to leave his life of crime. Moved, Ho agrees, but only after his next deal in Taiwan. He tells a hesitant Mark to stay behind and instead brings Shing (Waise Lee), a low-ranking member frequently hazed by more experienced members (like Mark) for being too eager to please. In Taiwan, the deal goes wrong; Ho and Shing are ambushed and the ensuing shootout alerts local law enforcement. Ho surrenders himself to buy time for Shing to escape and is sentenced to three years in a Taiwanese prison.
Back in Hong Kong, the triads attempt to kidnap Ho’s father to ensure Ho’s silence, but Ho’s father refuses and is fatally stabbed. Kit and his girlfriend Jackie (Emily Chu) walk in during the kerfuffle and subdue the attacker, but are unable to save Kit’s father. Dying, he tells Kit to forgive his brother, leading Kit to realise the truth about Ho. Enraged, Kit blames Ho for their father’s death. Mark, hearing about Ho’s capture, travels to Taiwan to enact revenge. He finds the gangster who ambushed Ho and massacres his men in their restaurant. Not all is rosy, however - Mark is shot in the leg, leaving him permanently disabled and requiring a leg brace to walk.
Three years later, Ho is released from prison and is immediately approached by a corrupt policeman who offers his old triad job back. Ho declines, determined to keep hold of the promise he made to his father. Instead, he finds work at a taxi company owned by an ex-con who only employs other ex-cons that have also pledged to leave the life of crime. During one of his shifts, Ho sees Mark hobbling on the side of a road and discovers that his old partner in crime has fallen from grace - the escaped Shing is now second-in-command, relegating Mark to low-rank subservience due to his injured leg. Ho and Mark reunite, with Mark urging Ho to take on Shing, but Ho refuses. Mark reveals that his will to live stems from waiting for Ho to continue their old lives, but Ho still refuses.
Instead, Ho seeks out his brother Kit, who violently rebuffs him. Over the past three years, Kit continued to blame Ho for their father’s death and also for his own career problems - his brother’s imprisonment had blacklisted Kit from promotions and high-profile cases. Emotionally triggered by his brother’s return, Kit becomes obsessed with bringing down Shing as a way to prove to his superiors (and to himself) that he is no longer associated with Ho. He ignores his brother’s warnings that he is playing into Shing’s hands.
Shing finds out that Ho is back in town and tries to persuade him to return to the triad by inviting Mark back in. Unaware that Ho and Kit have fallen out, Shing pitches the idea of expanding into drug trafficking; with the help of Kit, the triad could easily evade the police. Ho angrily refuses, disrespecting Shing in the process and leaves with Mark. Kit, so obsessed with Shing that he forgets Jackie’s birthday, is lured into a trap set by Shing despite Ho’s warnings. Shing ambushes Kit, wounding him, while at the same time trashing Ho’s taxi company and severely beating Mark. In an emotional scene - the one of the beaver - Mark convinces Ho to retaliate.
Together, they devise a plan to steal a computer tape containing real evidence about the triad’s counterfeiting business. Reading its contents, they discover that it was Shing who set up the ambush in Taiwan three years prior. They call Shing and his boss and threaten them with jail time - unless Shing brings two million dollars and an escape boat to the pier that evening, they will give the tape to the police. Ostensibly agreeing to the demands, Shing then sets up his boss by lying to him that Ho has agreed to return the tape over dinner. At the dinner table, Shing shoots his boss instead, telling witnesses to lie to the police that Ho was the killer. Meanwhile, Ho visits a recovering Kit and entrusts him with the tape, essentially saying goodbye.
Shing appears with two million dollars and Ho (along with Mark) holds him hostage at gunpoint. They make their way to the pier, where a crowd of Shing’s men wait with the escape boat. Knowing that it would be impossible to release Shing and escape at the same time, Ho tells Mark to leave on the boat by himself, who reluctantly agrees. After Mark departs, Kit arrives with the intention of arresting Shing but finds himself outnumbered and taken hostage. A haphazard deal is made to swap Shing for Kit, but it quickly collapses and results in a shootout. Hearing gunfire, Mark spins the boat around and returns to help the brothers. Heavily injured in the process, Ho attempts to reconcile with Kit but is rebuffed again. Mark loses his temper and loudly reprimands Kit, telling him that Ho has atoned for his sins many times over. Before Kit could respond, Mark is shot in the back by Shing, who had crept up on them.
Ho and Kit are shocked, prompting Shing to mock them for their impending failure. As police sirens appear, Shing turns and walks towards them, telling Ho and Kit that he will be released - his money and influence have ensured the allegiance of all witnesses. Hearing this, Kit hands Ho his loaded police revolver and turns away, allowing Ho to fatally shoot Shing from behind. To Kit’s surprise, Ho then grabs his brother’s handcuffs and cuffs himself. The film ends with the two brothers walking towards a crowd of police.
The movie’s brilliance lies not in its plot - which is admittedly simplistic - but in the way it artfully expresses the distinctive “Hong Kong” sociopolitical character of the 1980s. For the majority of the population, British governance was something in the background, a back-of-the-mind reality akin to the daily weather. Yet it was also a reality that could have sudden and profound consequences on daily life. British administration was an invisible hand holding an illegible book - an inaccessible but controlling force that somehow exudes a quality of being simultaneously important yet also irrelevant.
This distinctive way of interacting with the British class is perfectly portrayed in A Better Tomorrow. British rule - perhaps “British” Hong Kong - is hardly central to the movie at all. Non-Chinese characters are fleeting and peripheral, with British interactions only limited to two scenes: in the opening scenes, when Ho and Mark sell counterfeit dollars to English buyers, and one brief scene where two British superintendents question Kit and his boss about an operation to bring down Shing.
Both these scenes reflect the colonial Hong Kong character in different ways. The first five minutes of the movie open with Chow Yun-fat (head to toe in Western attire, with his famous trench coat now known as the ‘Mark-gor-lau,’ or ‘brother Mark’s winter coat’) eating some cheap rice rolls sold by a roadside illegal hawker next to the Legislative Council, Hong Kong’s governing body. As Ho pulls up in a Rolls-Royce, Chow finds the hawker hurrying away from a policeman. Chow comedically chases after him to pay as well as returning his used plate. Turning around, he waves a snarky “Hello Sir!” to the policeman, who ignores him and continues chasing after the hawker. This scene is an almost inexplicable demonstration of a multilayered social interaction between the various types of “haves” and “have-nots.” The Chinese hawker, who speaks no English yet somehow finds the courage to sell illegal food right outside Hong Kong’s highest governing body; Chow, dressed in expensive Western attire, waiting for a Rolls-Royce, entirely unbothered by eating cheap Cantonese street food, perhaps even proud of it; and the policeman, a silent enforcer of the city’s impenetrable and equally incomprehensible ruling class (at least to the hawker).
This impenetrable quality is further represented in the subsequent scene when Ho and Mark sell counterfeit dollars to several white businessmen. As the deal is being made - with barely any words exchanged - the audience only hears the muffled English of the businessmen talking to a laughing Chow. We only make out a few words - them asking Chow about his favourite drink and whether he could introduce them to any women. We don’t hear Chow’s response at all, only his laughter among a stream of never-ending foreign voices. We only learn of Chow’s limited and rehearsed English in the next scene, after Ho applauds Chow for knowing how to say “of course.”
Ho and Chow, rich enough to have a Rolls-Royce but not rich enough to say “of course,” perfectly encapsulates how typical Hong Kongers used to feel when interacting with British class. Knowing English was a necessity; a life skill for navigating colonial Hong Kong’s social fabric, especially if one wanted to rise to the very top. The scenes are comedic because reality is comedic. Chow isn’t interested in the lives of the white businessmen - he is only interested in what the words (devoid of any actual meaning) are able to provide him.
Similarly, the scene with the British superintendents reflects an impenetrable “cultural milieu” that Kit and his boss have to navigate in order to get on with their work (and their lives). While this time we are able to hear the English, the words are still in many ways as muffled as the English businessmen from the opening scene. Kit and his boss talk to each other in Cantonese in between answering their British bosses in basic English, as if to quickly placate the superintendents before getting back to their “real” work. In a way, both Kit and his boss are also impenetrable to their British bosses, and this scene captures the muffled quality of Hong Kong’s cultural milieu where incomprehensibility or semi-comprehensibility frequently occur, no matter the stakes.
Beyond its immediate setting, A Better Tomorrow is also an excellent meditation on traditional Chinese cultural values, particularly those typically associated with secret societies like the triads. When we think of triads today, we tend to focus on criminality of these syndicates - the Chinese version of the Italian mafia or Japanese yakuza. Yet like the yakuza and mafia, Chinese triads also have a far greyer history than one that is simply “good” or “evil.” Understanding this history allows us to better grasp why Chinese “crime” and “triad” genres overwhelmingly concern themselves with themes of loyalty, honour, brotherhood, and betrayal.
Today’s triads originated from secret societies formed during the eighteenth century, when Han Chinese loyalists banded together to overthrow the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. Membership was vast and diverse. Triad networks were sophisticated and often religious. These groups can be traced back to the Tiandihui 天地會 (Heaven and Earth Society; alternatively known as the Hongmen 洪門), a secret society founded during the seventeenth century which was first formed as a mutual aid group to fill in for an absent government during natural disasters like war or famine. The Manchu-led Qing regarded societies like the Tiandihui as subversive; the court’s efforts to ban them, however, only politicized them into becoming vehemently anti-Qing and eventually a revolutionary movement with the sole purpose of overthrowing what they saw was an illegitimate government. As natural disasters, rebellions, and economic decline worsened, the Tiandihui saw its influence explode, with member groups involved in seismic rebellions like the Taiping and Boxer uprisings. Many Hongmen groups were formed in overseas Chinese communities including Canada, Australia, the United States, Great Britain, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. It was during this time that worshipping Guan Yu became associated with brotherhood, loyalty, and righteousness - cultural values used to legitimise the Hongmen’s illegal, anti-establishment activities.
When the Qing imperium finally collapsed in 1911, many Hongmen members (both in China and overseas) suddenly found themselves without purpose. Although secret societies were still fundamentally mutual aid groups, many members found it impossible to reintegrate into normal society after so many years on the run. Many turned to organised crime, splintering off into different networks (while still calling themselves triads) and becoming gangsters, racketeers, hired thugs, human traffickers, among other activities that suited their propensity to operate in the shadows. On mainland China and British Hong Kong, Hongmen had been illegal for centuries; triad networks in these locales found it easier to turn to a life of crime. Despite their turn to organised crime, these triads retained many of the cultural values associated with their Hongmen pasts - brotherhood, loyalty, anti-establishment righteousness - despite their criminal endeavours.
In Taiwan , by contrast, the Hongmen is not only legal but politically influential. Sun Yat-sen was a senior member within the Hongmen, whose own networks were instrumental in fundraising, plotting, and ultimately overthrowing the Qing dynasty. The Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) was born out of societies similar to the Hongmen (Revive China 興中會; Restoration 光復會). Today, Taiwanese offshoots of the Hongmen call themselves businessmen, but their legal status does not preclude them from carrying out illegal activities.
This history explains why the “Heroic Bloodshed” genre has been so popular in the Chinese cultural psyche, and why their templates - simplistic as they are - continue to be used over and over. Loyalty, brotherhood, honour - these themes explode onto the screen in the beaver scene, when Chow Yun-fat breaks down and pours his heart out to Ho, begging him to finally retaliate against Shing:
我有自己嘅原則 I have my own principles.
我就唔想成世俾人襟住嚟打 I don't want to be stepped on for a lifetime.
你以為我好鍾意同人乞咩? Do you think I like being a beggar?
我衰咗三年 我等一個機會 I've waited for three years, just to wait for an opportunity.
爭返啖氣 To wrestle for my honour.
唔係要證明話俾人我威 Not to prove how amazing I am,
只係想話俾人聽我唔見咗嘅嘢我就自己攞返 But to show everyone that I will reclaim what I have lost.
Both Ho and Mark are tragic figures condemned to a life of crime - by choice or by fate we do not know. What we do know is that the legacy of the past is difficult to overthrow, and often suffocating. Ho’s own morals of rebirth and redemption are, ultimately, subservient to forces far greater than his own. For the Hongmen who couldn’t reintegrate into society, could they have chosen a better life than the one of crime? Perhaps. But for many, the sudden turn from heroes with purpose to criminals without one meant they could only legitimize their existence with what they knew - and what they knew were the cultural values encoded into the centuries-old communities they were a part of. Does it make sense? Maybe not. But is it understandable? Certainly.
“A man’s got to have a code,” said Omar. A Better Tomorrow shows how this deeply human sentiment manifested in British Hong Kong during the 1980s.