The WA dvd houses the longer 130 minute Taiwan edit of Tsui Hark's A Better Tomorrow. As far as I could appreciate, this version runs about 10 minutes longer with new footage mainly in the middle part of the film. I enjoyed seeing most of this since it emphasized the romance and motivations for it a bit more. Certain other motivations for violence are also slightly fleshed out and all in all, no scene really felt like it slowed down the film. While it's a shame that many good scenes didn't end up in the Hong Kong print, I can understand that the running time needed some shortening. The reason it's longer in Taiwan is that at the time it functioned (and to some extent I think it still does) as a testing ground for the filmmakers. They see what doesn't work and needs to be taken out that way. Lucky Taiwan audience!. Sadly not a whole lot of movies with longer Taiwan prints are on dvd but thankfully this is.

I've done stills of the added and extended scenes into something I like to call the A Better Tomorrow III Deleted & Extended Scenes Gallery. It's not currently known whether Hong Kong Legends will put these scenes on their upcoming dvd but regardless it's nice to have them edited into the flow of the movie. You should also check out this link to muldoon's (of Asian DVD Guide) remarks about the longer edit.

The 1.85:1 transfer looks pretty solid throughout. There are speckles and sadly some very visible lines through the print though. Night scenes suffers the most though but the print boasts nice colours. As far as I could see, every new scene and extension had a marking at the beginning and end of it so it's fairly easy to see what's new. Some may be distracted by the marks but they don't last for more than a second.

There is only a mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the disc and as with every other WA release there is a horrible echo present. It basically sounds like it's been taped inside a large theatre. This is mostly distracting during dialogue but truth be told I kind of forgot about it as I was sucked into the movie. The echo sometimes leaks into the surrounds but the sound stays pretty much centered throughout otherwise.

The optional english subtitles contains some small errors but were better than I expected. I have to give credit to WA for translating the Anita Mui ballad also. A set of chinese subtitles is also included but I don't know whether they're simplified or traditional since the disc's menu is all in chinese. In that menu we only find options to play movie, select a scene or select subtitles.