A  prequel to the first two films, 'A Better Tomorrow 3' is set before Mark Gor (Yun Fat) was such an expert with a gun and a charismatic gangster.  Cheung (Tony Leung) travels to Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war with the aid of his cousin Mark, intent of bringing his uncle back to Hong Kong.  Here they meet Chow (Anita Mui), a beautiful but deadly lover of gang leader Ho, and the cousins instantly fall for her.  Ho has Cheung and Mark deported and kills their uncle but they return to Saigon to get their revenge with Chow teaching them the vital gun skills that they will need.

With the departure of John Woo, this third part in the 'A Better Tomorrow' series changed the subject matter from an emotionally charged tale of three friends into a political drama with the only slight connection being the inclusion of Yun Fat's character.  However, Tsui Hark does a commendable job on his own, keeping it interesting throughout by using the film to examine the state of Vietnam after the war which provides an intriguing contrast to the typical war movie made about this era.  This could have been even better if Hark had built on it with real character development but unfortunately he spends far too much time setting the scene rather than exploring his leads so the actors always tend to feel somewhat superficial.

The main downfall though comes in the form of the action which was such an important factor in the previous instalments.  Here Hark clearly lacks Woo's talent for gunplay and places the real emphasis on death rather than style which is in keeping with the story but is disappointing for the fans.  This isn't aided by the inclusion of Anita Mui as Mark's teacher as you can't help but struggle to imagine her as the teacher of such an iconic character.

Overall then, as a standalone film this isn't a bad effort with an original choice of settings but as a prequel to 'A Better Tomorrow', it just doesn't quite cut it.