Just got done watching Hard Boiled for my Criterion project. I had to skip the Killer for now, because it was out of print and I couldn't find anywhere to rent it. Yet. But I've seen Better Tomorrow 1 and 2 and now Hard Boiled, so I feel like I've got a good feel for John Woo's gun fight movies:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
A more polished version of the type of action movies Woo was directing to critical acclaim in Hong Kong, Hard Boiled is on the short list of seminal Chinese action movies. After revolutionizing the sword-fighting in kung-fu movies, Woo branched out to make Hong Kong gangster films, which were very responsive to real crimes in Hong Kong at the time (the opening montage of gangster headlines in Boiled are all real.) Of course, to watch this movie is to appreciate the amazing fight choerography. Woo's early films pratically invented the "two-gun" action style that proliferated in China and overseas through today. In Hard Boiled, Chow Yun Fat plays Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, a maverick cop trying to stop illegal weapons dealing. This leads to about nine thousand bloody, ballet-like gunfights, which are incredibly exciting and eye-catching. While Fat is good as always, the movie also showcases Tony Leung, as Tony, a deep cover detective, and the excellent Anthony Wong as Johnny Wong, a vicious young gangster.
Two things struck me particularly as I was watching: one was the incredibly flawed concepts of heroism, or possibly anti-heroism, in this movie. As an undercover cop, Tony has to kill countless gangsters, including his old boss, Mr. Hoi. In pursuing the bad guys, Fat kills another undercover cop. In the climactic final battle, Tony kills a cop as well, one of Fat's assistants. IN all of these battles, countless innocents are killed. Johnny Wong infamously mows through several crippled and sick men and women in the hospital. But what are the "good guys" fighting for? It's clear that Tony and Chow don't like each other, and Tony seems to be selling his soul over and over in the movie, but it's unclear what he's actually interested in saving. This brings a level of reality to the picture, and it is expertly expressed by cinematographer Wing Hung Wong, whose emotional work reminds me of Dante Spinotti's work with Michael Mann, who seems to be interested in similar things. All in all, an enjoyable, stylish and gritty action movie that I highly recommend. But I recommend For a Better Tomorrow II more.
Shitloads of work to do, and here I am wasting my time writing about movies! Back to it.
