@MrDoog I actually had to watch this film for a film class at my university and there's some literature written about this. Maybe you're watching the film in the wrong way. There's a lot going on in this film in terms of depictions of masculinity. I can recommend some readings if you want to truly enjoy the film.

John Woo was just finding his style in A Better Tomorrow, but this is a film that just gets better and better as its moves along until it comes out at the end as basically the template for loads of Hong Kong cinema, creating the "heroic bloodshed" subgenre in the process. If it feels dated at all, it's because of its score, 80s synths and schmaltz, but even that resolves itself by the last reel. Woo's always mobile camera follows the tale of three brothers. Two of them tied by blood - Ti Lung as a gangster trying to reform and Leslie Cheung as a cop who can't forgive - the other a brother-in-arms, Chow Yun-fat as a very cool gangster whose loyalty are tested when his friend renounces the life. The emotion is cranked up to almost unbearable levels sometimes, and I don't think Cheung is really on par with the other actors (and his character makes all the stupidest decisions), but there's no arguing with Woo's energy and style. In the 2000s, he would produce a Korean version of this story which I felt had more depth because it played with North/South Korea as texture for the brothers' divide. This is more intimate and contained, and there's a special thrill to seeing an auteur finding his voice before your eyes.

aka "A Better Tomorrow" and some sources state 1987