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Directed by: John Woo Starring: Tony Leung / Chow Yun-Fat http://paintedover.com/uploads/2/hb1.jpg If not considered the greatest of the Hong Kong blood operas that proliferated Asia throughout the late 80's and early 90's, it certainly comes close. Widely admired and scorned for its blatant disreguard for the human life, and its attempts to pull no punches when it comes to hard core action. The story is about two men on opposite sides of the law. One man, Tequila, is a rogue cop who relentlessly tracks a gun smuggler named Johnny Wong after one of Wong's men shot his partner dead. The other is a mysterious assassin within the ranks of the smugglers who goes by the name of Alan. Strange coincidences connect the two men and force them into the center of a gang war that will decide who controls all of Hong Kong. If you want to be a dick and take the plot too seriously, this movie will suck for you. It plays out like it was written on accident, a failed experiment in a writing 101 at a community college. All the action cliches are there, with men who die soley for the purpose of their partners avenging them. There's lots of "I drink pepto strait from the bottle" type Police captains and "GET HIM AT ALL COSTS" type villians. There's even the requisite stone faced mad dog killer who kills like he was painting his nails. Strangely enough this mad dog killer is actually named Mad Dog. Yeah so all seriousness aside I love this movie. The shoot outs are unreal, and for a while I believe this movie held (and may still hold) the record for the highest body count of any movie to date. It's hyper violent and the choreography (aptly named gun ballet by some critics) is only fathomable after viewing. This kind of cinematic genius and depravity has never existed anywhere else but in this genre, and never peaked so much like as it does in Hard Boiled. I really can't go into further detail withour ruining the pleasure of discovery that this film's action sequences provide, so I'll leave you with this: "Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he's God." Yeah, it's a balls to the wall death picture. A sure-fire favorite for all disaffected college students and men who keep a bottle of lotion and a loaded ak-47 ready at all times. If you're either, you'll love this movie. If you're both, you've probably already seen it. 5 For sheer sensationalism and achievement in the genre of action. RATING: 5 PROS: Perhaps the most famous and violent of the Hong Kong blood operas CONS: Bad subs, worse dubs / most DVDs badly need a remastering ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104684/ ]-[ate_Sandwich fucked around with this message at 09:03 on May 4, 2004 |
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May 4, 2004 09:00
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 02:39 |
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Probably the greatest gun fight battle of all time.. infact, probably has the best 3. The acting is solid and the action is immersive throughout. If you haven't seen this film then you have to go out and buy it IMMEDIATELY. This is proper Chow Yun Fat, none of that Bulletproof Monk crap, unfortunately he's in Hollywood now, and Hollywood can't make movies of this calibre. The best action movie to come out of Asia. Full Marks.
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May 4, 2004 14:08
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I liked it more than I thought I would, pity i'm not Chinese because for me the subs and dubs were both appalling and really retracted away from the whole thing. Plus the mob boss guy was a bit of a crappy actor. 4/5
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May 4, 2004 16:55
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It's frankly been a downward spiral for Woo since his American directorial debut with the Van Damme bomb Hard to Kill. Hard Boiled was the last hurrah for Woo as a director in Hong Kong, but what a way to go out in style. There are at least three scenes in this movie that make it to the unofficial top-10 best action sequences list. My favorite scene is the uninterrupted five-minute Steadycam shot of Tequila (Yun-Fat) and Alan (Leung) blowing away wave after wave of Triad riff-raff, rounding corners at the ends of hallways in a crowded hospital and reloading their still-smoking guns in an elevator. The choreography is nothing short of mastery here. It's a shame that Woo is being paid millions to make cookie-cutter escapist fare like Paycheck rather than what he does best: meat-and-potatoes gunplay, mega-cool gangsters, and kinetic editing and camerawork that enthrall the audience with it's creativity and ferocity. Mr. Woo, high-tail it back to HK and make more bloody loving magic! 5/5
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May 6, 2004 04:32
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An action landmark. Some of the flat-out craziest gunplay EVER. Bad dubs and poor subtitles hurt it, but this movie exists solely to kick you in the balls with crazy gunfight action, and it does that better than any other action movie I can think of. 4/5.
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Jun 1, 2006 01:47
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The action was good, but the story was just really bad. It wasn't incoherent, it was just so drat implausible it didn't let me enjoy the movie fully. 3.5/5
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Jun 6, 2006 14:45
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I put off watching this movie for a good 12 years, mainly due to lending my buddy the dubbed VHS i bought when i was 11 and never getting it back. For the best, I'm glad when I finally watched it, it was subbed and I enjoyed every second. It truly makes me sad how watered down and generic Woo has become since he started directing in America.. if Hard Target was a *true* Woo film, it could've been great.
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Jun 13, 2006 18:57
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 02:39 |
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I watched this movie 3 times in a row start to fininsh. 6.5/5
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Jun 15, 2006 19:17
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