[6] Produced with a tight budget and released with virtually no advertising, A Better Tomorrow broke Hong Kong's box office record and went on to become a blockbuster in Asia.

Sung Tse-Ho is a senior member of a powerful Hong Kong triad, managing a lucrative printing and distributing operation that produces counterfeit American bank notes.

However, they are ambushed by the Taiwanese triads, leading to a shootout in which Ho and Shing flee into a sewage tunnel entrance, pursued by local law enforcement.

Ho tells Shing to run and surrenders to the police in order to buy time for him to escape, leading to a three-year prison sentence.

After Ho is released from prison, he is approached by a corrupt policeman, who offers to take him back to triad headquarters so he can rejoin his old organization.

Ho, determined to start a new life, declines the offer and instead begins working for a taxi company run by another ex-con named Ken.

During one of his shifts, Ho encounters Mark, and he discovers that his old friend is now a bitter, broken shell of his former self after Shing stripped him of his position in the triad and cast him aside in his rise to power.

Shing then has his men attack the taxi company, severely beat Mark, and lure Kit into a trap that leaves him critically wounded.

Mark steals a computer tape containing printing plate data from the counterfeiting business and they then discover that it was Shing who set up the ambush three years prior.

Meanwhile, Shing sets up triad leader Yie and shoots him dead; the witnesses are told to lie to the police that Ho was the killer.

[12][10] The scene in which Mark Lee tells the story of being forced to drink urine is apparently based on a real incident involving Chow Yun-fat and director Ringo Lam.

This scene was recreated in Woo's Bullet in the Head, which was originally scripted as a prequel to A Better Tomorrow, before being changed to a standalone film.

The English title likely originates from the song Tomorrow Will Be Better, written by Lo Ta-yu, which is traditionally sung during New Year's Eve, and is featured in the film.

[14] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

John Woo returned to direct, as did most of the main cast, with Chow Yun-fat playing Mark's hitherto-unmentioned twin brother Ken.