Hard Boiled (1992)

Touches You

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

What's there to be said about John Woo's Hard-Boiled that hasn't already been said? What else is there to say about John Woo in general? His over-the-top and strangely balletic approach to action has been highly influential in the action genre, spawning copycats and rip-offs the world over for decades. Even today, long after Woo's last stylized action extravaganza hit theaters, directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodrigeuz (to name the most obvious ones) still mimic Woo's kinetic approach.Hard-Boiled is Woo's last Hong Kong film before he emigrated to good ol' Hollywood, where his style was utilized with higher production values and restrictions Woo had never had to deal with before. Sure, he went back after a while, but things were never the same (or nearly as fun) after Hard-Boiled. His previous films, most of which starred Chow Yun-Fat, were all exercises in pretentious melodrama and frenetic gun violence.It has all led to this. Hard-Boiled, also starring Chow Yun-Fat, cranks down the melodrama a few notches and kicks the gun violence into high gear. It's darker and has less heart than Woo's previous films, but Woo will still find a way to film a tragic scene in blurry slow motion from multiple angles, and he'll be damned if he doesn't add in the obligatory reaction shot of an emotional onlooker. No matter what movie it is, or what actor, it's always the same look in the John Woo Obligatory Reaction Shot. With emotional jazz music. Don't forget the emotional jazz music.But we don't really watch John Woo's films for the silly melodrama, do we? No, not particularly. Woo's idea of drama is laughable and kind of childish. His dialogue is often just as stupid as his drama is over-the-top waterworks about loyalty and brotherhood and redemption and the like. The brotherly bonds Woo's protagonists share add to the overall appeal of his work and has been copied almost as often as his shootouts. In A Better Tomorrow, it was a cop brother dealing with the road his triad brother has taken--with Chow Yun-Fat kind of slapped in between them as the middle man who wants to keep them both together. A Better Tomorrow II was more of the same. The Killer was a hitman (also Chow) being pursued by and later becoming partners with a dedicated cop.This time, it's Chow playing an angry cop named Sergeant "Tequila" Yuen, eventually teaming up with a triad named Tony, played by Tony Leung, who may or may not be an undercover. Of course, that answer is obvious, though Woo tries to lead us astray at first. They're both caught on the same side and also opposite sides in a triple-threat death match between two warring gangs and the police. Poor Tony gets mixed up with all three at once. Sooner or later, he'll have to pick a side and betray the other two.Sound confusing? Not quite. It's one of those mixed bags where the film is executed in a more complicated fashion than the plot ought to allow. The plot is simplicity itself. Think if The Raid 2 was made in the early 1990's and had blazing guns instead of blurry fists and feet. A crazy gunrunner wants to expand his business and the cops don't want that. Plain and simple.Aside from some decent acting from Leung and Chow--Leung for his emotional performance as a man torn by multiple loyalties, and Chow as a jaded cop who struggles to maintain control of his rage--the only other things worth mentioning are the higher production values and Woo's fantastic gun battles, since the soundtrack is wonky and hard on the ears when it isn't a sad jazzy melody, and the dialogue is a borderline joke at times, both in Cantonese with an English subtitle option AND with an English dub track (the latter of which makes this even more fun to watch just for the unintentionally comedic values it brings).So why the 8/10 rating? I'll tell you why: Hard-Boiled knows what it is, and it is the best of both worlds. It's a dark, brooding crime saga and a highly stylized action feast with some good-natured dark humour and a surprising amount of camp sprinkled in for good measure. Sure, lots of films can get away with the argument that "they know what they are," but few are executed as well as Hard-Boiled was. Hard-Boiled is just a wide load of fun for everyone--or at least, every action fan who's tired of the sterile quick-cut-zoom-close-up saturation style that generally infects most Hollywood films. In this case, it's not the "why," but the "how" and the "what;" it's not the idea, but the execution of that idea. And Woo's execution of Hard-Boiled as a whole is both masterful and excessive. We're treated to wide shots, panning shots, and chaos in its most raw and balletic forms, and of course a two-minute continuous shot of our heroes rampaging through the corridors of a hospital swarming with flying cannon fodder. With Woo, no blank is spared, no explosive is abandoned, and not a single shot is wasted. And I mean EVERY shot--be it from a gun or a camera.As excessive as it is, it's quite amazing that Woo managed to film these things with multiple cameras without so much as a boom mike being present within the frame. He manages this throughout the film, which is two hours, six minutes in total--approximately an hour and a half of which accommodates one of its three major action setpieces (and a fourth brief one somewhere in the middle). Each setpiece is crazier than the one before it, and by the finale, which goes on for a whopping forty minutes; the actors were practically blowing each other up for real. In fact, Woo DID blow up Chow for real (or singed him, at least...) when he reset the explosives for the sole purpose of getting a more authentic reaction from poor Chow.This is basically The Wolf of Wall Street of action films minus the third hour, for both our sakes and, well, everyone else's. I don't think anyone could handle a third hour of this kind of mayhem--not even the best of us. We're out of breath by the second exhilarating hour. By the third, if such a thing existed, there would be nothing left of us but exhausted shells. Action fans looking for a quick fix would find themselves OD'ing three times in a single sitting on this.Is John Woo's Hard-Boiled worthy of being called an action classic alongside films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon? It depends on who you ask. If you asked me, I would tell you the latter options have better characters and dialogue, but the former trumps both of them and several others combined for kinetic thrills and cartoonish mayhem.I wouldn't, however, take Hard-Boiled as seriously.

Hard Boiled is my number 1 favorite Hong Kong John Woo action film that I love to death! I absolutely love this movie to death I love it. It is one of my personal favorite movies. Hard Boiled (1992) is literally John Woo's best Hong Kong action film ever made of all time! The movie is a hard-core action, I have ever seen. It is actually the best Hong Kong action film for me. It belongs right up there with Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) the best action classic film of all time. Chow Yun-Fat, toothpick in mouth, a gun in each hand. That's all of the plot you need to know. In fact, this is THE best pure action epic ever filmed. This is my film, my personal favorite Hong Kong action film of all time."Give the guy a gun and he's superman, give him two and he's God."Not even Jackie Chan can mess with this film or beat it. The only Jackie Chan film that is close to this film is Police Story. In my opinion Hard Boiled is John Woo's best HK action movie from the 90's and a true masterpiece along with Hard Target (1993) his first American movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the main role. Chow Yun-Fat stars as Tequila, a cop hell-bent on bringing down the gun smugglers responsible for his partner's death. He teams up with an undercover cop Tony Leung whose secret identity as a Triad hit man hangs on thread.Hard Boiled is my favorite John Woo's HK action movies. This action movie with twists around, The Hong Kong Cinema Hard Boiled has everything in it, no CGI, the stunts are real, the explosions are bigger and the plot of the film is amazing you can get in to the story without guessing what is going to happened and what the plot is about. The warehouse scenes and a shooting a motorcycles in an explosions from Tequila is my favorite scenes in the movie. Sometimes to me it come for this movie is similar to Miami Vice when Tony Leung was undercover cop on a boat he remind me on Sonny Crockett, but the shout outs in this film are awesome. Just Miami Vice TV series where more about drug cartels, this is arms dealer weapons about triads. The stunts are real and very dangerous. There was a hospital siege which was actually Die Hard in a hospital. Hard Boiled is a classic action film from Hong Kong, they don't make movies like this anymore. Phillip Chan is also in this film which I forgot to mention in my review Philip Chan was also in Van Damme's Bloodsport. You have a great action sequences in the tea house, where the guns are hitting in the bird cage, he shoots a dozen guys and saves a baby, the hospital sequences are real. The first time I saw this film I had no idea that how great film it is, the greatest movie of all time in the cinema. John Woo is also as a bartender in this film. The hospital sequences for me is real, the action is real. The best Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo movie ever made. Hard Boiled is a 1992 Hong Kong action film written by Barry Wong and directed by John Woo. It stars Chow Yun-fat as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai10/10 I love this movie to death it is my favorite Hong Kong Action film and it is my second favorite film that I love. It is also my number 2 favorite action film.

The problem with Hard Boiled isn't that it's a bad film in any way possible. The problem is that I've already seen The Killer and A Better Tomorrow, both of them earlier hit films from the director John Woo. Both of them are absolutely fantastic, and so is Hard Boiled in many ways. Except that nothing in it feels original. Woo is famous for popularizing the Hong Kong style of action in the West, but even his distinctive style can become repetitive.In Hard Boiled a loose cannon cop nicknamed Tequila, played by Chow Yun-fat because every John Woo main character is played by Chow Yun- fat, loses his partner in a gang shoot-out. He decides to take the matter of revenge into his own hands, which doesn't exactly please his superiors. And then the affair gets even more complicated when one of the most lethal assassins the gangs have turns out to have shifting loyalties. The plot is actually pretty good. The loyalties and morals always switching sides, you're never quite sure how the characters are going to react and it's all-around solid entertainment.Plus, the action works. The ending fight scene in the hospital drags a lot, but I cannot say that I didn't enjoy it. And the earlier fight scenes are all pure gold, exactly what you'd expect from John Woo.But, the story and the style do lack that edge. It feels more paint- by-numbers than it feels proper film-making. If this is the first John Woo film you'll see, you're probably going to enjoy it a lot. But he has done much better films, there's no denying that.

Hong Kong police detective "Tequila" Yuen (Chow Yun-fat) raids a triad gunrunning scheme from China into HK. His partner is killed in the shootout. He executes a gangster and is ordered off the case. Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is an expert assassin hired by the gang to kill off its rivals.Director John Woo has an unique overblown action style. It is massive, bombastic with the prerequisite slow motion replay and Mexican standoffs. For fans of his style, this is heaven. For me, it gets a bit repetitive. It's big but not necessarily intense. The story is a bit messy. The lead actors are great and the movie keeps my interest throughout.