Hard Boiled

If you claim to like and know about action shoot em up's, and you've never seen or heard of this classic, then i'm sorry my friend, because you've been left in the dark. Released in 1992, Hard Boiled is a shoot em up fest of epic proportion that lasts for over two hours. Written and directed by the critically aclaimed John Woo, who is famous for this type of movie's and his trademark use of slow-motion, With this being his best work in my opinion, and the last one he made in Hong Kong before his American endevours, John Woo never really impressed me again as much as he did with this movie, Hard Boiled is a classic, that should be on every action junkies list. Even though the action was prominent in this movie, i liked the way the Jazz soundtrack composed by Michael Gibbs, smooths things over at times when it was needed to give the action a break, it was also a good idea allowing the lead role of Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, played by Chow Yun-fat, to be able to play the clarinet, i felt that these aspects added depth to the character and movie, also the dark humour at times allowed the movie not to take itself too seriously, which i also enjoyed, and not forgetting the finale sequence of the hospital, which are amongst the best action scenes ever, and probably inspired the movies original poster. Hard Boiled picked up Winner of the 1993 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Editing, and shot John woo and Chow yun-fat into the Hollywood limelight, i'm hoping that one day, Woo and Chow decide to work together like this again, because they have such great chemistry. A video game sequel titled Stranglehold was released in 2007, developed in collaboration with John Woo, and even stars Chow Yun-fat in a revival of his role as the Hard boiled cop, Stranglehold was cool and worth looking into if you're a gamer, it was also the last time we saw Woo and Chow colaborate since the movie, and would be great to see them work together again on a movie project.

"Give a man a gun and he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God."

Quote from the movie

Video game sequel of Hard Boiled

Chow Yun-fat says this about the film in Hong Kong Action Cinema: "The film is seventy percent action, thirty percent story!" But this increase in action may have some base in reality. Chow goes on to say "In America, the policeman must shout 'stop' before he shoots you. Here [in Hong Kong], he can just shoot you any time, without warning! That comes across in the films."

Hard boiled was filmed in the 90's during the time of Asia's rising crime rate when triads were very active, thats why John Woo decided to create the character of 'Tequila' as a hero cop figure, to give the people hope, he himself made a cameo apearance as a bartender in a scene where he can be seen conversing with Tequila.

Synopsis and trailer



Chow Yun-fat

A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who's working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.

Director: John Woo

John Woo

Producers: Terence Chang, Linda Kuk,
Written by: Gorden Chan, Barry Wong,
Story by: John Woo
Starring: Chow Yun-fat,  Tony Leung,  Chiu-Wai,  Teresa Mo,

Music by: Michael Gibbs
Cinematography: Wang Wing-Heng
Edited by: John Woo Jack Ah David Wu Kai Kit-Wai

Production company: Golden Princess Film Production, Milestone Pictures

Distributed by: Golden Princess Film Production (Hong Kong)

Running time: 1hr 28mins
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese, English Dubbed

Release date: 16 April 1992 (Hong Kong)