A Better Tomorrow Trivias

John Woo (cameo), the director, is the Taiwanese police chief walking along the corridor of the bloodshed restaurant in slow motion.

Chow Yun Fat's entrance to the restaurant before the shoot-out is John Woo's homage to Mean Streets.

This film has been called "the film that launched a thousand remakes" due to the wave of triad pictures that followed.

After the film, teenage boys in Hong Kong wore long dusters in emulation of Chow's character even though the climate was sub-tropical. In fact, in colloquial Cantonese, trench coats are called "Mark Gor Lau" (literally, Brother Mark's coat).

Woo's film was partially inspired by the 1967 Lung Kong film Ying xiong ben se (Story of a Discharged Prisoner), which is #39 on the Hong Kong Film Awards list of the Top 100 Chinese Films.

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, according to Bey Logan on the DVD commentary. This scene was recreated in Woo's Bullet in the Head.

Reportedly John Woo cast Chow Yun-Fat because he felt he did not look like an action star.

In the scene where Kit rushes Jackie to a music recital, the violinist playing before Jackie plays the theme song of the movie.

The Wu-Tang Clan has a a song named after the film on their 1997 album Wu-Tang Forever

Stephen Chow, while at early stage of his film career, was playing a minor role as a bodyguard of the Taiwanese triad leader.