Hard Boiled by John Woo (1992)
For his final Hong Kong action film, John Woo decided to pull out all of the stops and go for broke. But whereas previous Woo films like A Better Tomorrow and The Killer had glamorized criminals and assassins, Hard Boiled instead glamorized the city’s cops (a decision Woo made in the wake of a real-life psychopath poisoning baby food). Of course, in Woo’s action cinema universe, the cops — led by Chow Yun-fat’s Tequila — don’t care one whit about due process. But more importantly, they never, ever have to reload their guns, which comes in handy when Tequila has to take on wave after wave after wave of nameless goons, each one of which is loaded with squibs for extra bloody effect. Meanwhile, Tony Leung’s undercover cop finds his morals increasingly challenged as he infiltrates the gang of a violent gun smuggler (played with vile glee by Anthony Wong). Will Chow and Leung be forced to work from opposite sides of the law to bring down Wong’s triad boss? C’mon now, what do you think? There’s nothing but excess in Hard Boiled, be it the many gun fights — which, despite influencing countless Hollywood films like the John Wick franchise, have never been equalled — or the intense bro drama between Chow and Leung’s characters. Hard Boiled is definitely silly at times (and this time around, I was struck by just how funny it can be). But when it’s on (e.g., the warehouse shootout), few movies are this deliriously stylish and enjoyable.
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