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 ard-Boiled" has the distinction of being action
auteur John Woo's last Hong Kong picture, and so far, his last picture with his
familiar star (and offscreen friend) Chow Yun-Fat. I don't think it would be too
farfetched to say that the duo have turned what was once a joke in international
cinema (re: Hong Kong films) into something to be reckon with and respected. Woo
and Fat's action movies are international blockbusters, major hits everywhere
except in the States, where their earlier films like "The
Killer" and "A Better Tomorrow" remain cult favorites
only.
"Hard-Boiled" is not really a movie, but rather John Woo giving a thumbs up to Hong Kong and everything Hong Kong has done for
his career. After "Hard-Boiled," Woo would migrate to America as a
star director, doing mediocre action movies with mediocre stars like Jean Claude
Van Damme before graduating to mediocre action movies with big stars like
Tom Cruise in "Mission Impossible
2."
In "Hard-Boiled," Woo
favorite Yun-Fat plays a character name "Tequila" (at least in the American version) who is something of a loose cannon. (Didn't
see that coming, did ya?) Anyhoo... Tequila, following the tried and true
formula of all cop movies everywhere, has just seen a gangster working for a
notorious gunrunner whack his partner during a shootout. Needless to say, before
you can spit out, "Cliché storyline ahead!" Tequila is going after the gunrunner and he
isn't going to stop until one of them is dead, or at least until a lot of innocent
bystanders are slaughtered and a whole hospital is blown to smithereens -- both
of which happens.
One doesn't watch a movie like "Hard-Boiled" as much
as one experiences it. The movie is breathtaking in its gunplay. Woo once
again employs what has become known as "gun-fu" (a play on words in
respect to "wire-fu," the Hong Kong tradition of using wires to make
their characters literally fly in martial arts films).
In fact, Act 3 is one
big gunfight, where our two heroes Tequila and undercover cop Alan (who is
obviously no
longer undercover) marches through numerous floors and hallways to get to the
psychotic gunrunner holed up in the hospital's basement/morgue, which
incidentally is also the bad guy's secret armory. You see, the bad guy stores
his guns at the hospital.
Anyhoo, the gunfight is intense, and I mean intense.
Windows are shattered, at least 30 bad guys are filled with holes, at least 50
hospital patients are slaughtered, a number of SWAT cops shot dead, and a room
full of infant babies endangered by: gunfire, explosions, fire, and, yes, the
threat of falling from 3 stories up. (I kid you not on that last one.)
"Hard-Boiled" is Woo's swan song to his Hong Kong
roots, and it's a doozy. The plot of "Hard-Boiled" is really
incidental, since there is hardly anything you couldn't have guessed would happen
if you've seen at least two cop movies in your life.
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