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That is how tormented undercover agent Alan (Tony Leung) describes himself to detective Tequila Yuen (Chow Yun-fat). This hints at the inner struggles of playing two different people at the same time, something which Alan has to deal with, especially if he wants to take down his triad boss. Hard Boiled follows the efforts of the two to do so.
After opening the film with a balls-out shoot-out at a restaurant, Woo slows down into what you think will be a more subdued and morally complex crime thriller, where the struggles mentioned above come into play. Instead, by the last act, our heroes are jumping to the side shooting endless bullets at a constant swarm of nameless bad guys as a hospital literally blows up on top of them. It is the epitome of excesses of Woo and action films in general.
In lesser hands, this would all end up being a mess. But with Woo, there is an almost operatic fluidity to it all. It is chaos, but it feels like concerted chaos as Tequila and Alan slide and fly through floors and stairs dodging storms of bullets and fire. However, as cool as Woo's explosions are, it does get to a point of numbing. By that last act, you can't really feel the stakes anymore and it's all just mindless "rat-tat-tat".
There are also some pointless hints at a romantic relationship between Tequila and a female partner that end up going nowhere. As it has become evident to me with this Woo binge, he continues to fail at building strong and successful romantic relationships while exceling at building strong brotherly connections between his leads. A big part of what makes this film work is Chow Yun-fat's charisma and Leung's emotionally strong performance. The latter brings a good dose of pathos and conflict to his character, even if the script doesn't fully care about it.
This was my fourth Hong Kong Woo outing and it's been an interesting journey so far. Like I said in a previous review, to see his fingerprints and visual flare imitated in other action or crime films has been quite a thing. I certainly wish he would pay just as much attention to his scripts, but I'll settle for the balls-to-the-wall, crazy action setpieces and cool characters for now.
Grade:
HARD BOILED
(1992, Woo)
(1992, Woo)
"To you, I'm a criminal. To my mum, I'm a son. To the triads, I'm a hero."
That is how tormented undercover agent Alan (Tony Leung) describes himself to detective Tequila Yuen (Chow Yun-fat). This hints at the inner struggles of playing two different people at the same time, something which Alan has to deal with, especially if he wants to take down his triad boss. Hard Boiled follows the efforts of the two to do so.
After opening the film with a balls-out shoot-out at a restaurant, Woo slows down into what you think will be a more subdued and morally complex crime thriller, where the struggles mentioned above come into play. Instead, by the last act, our heroes are jumping to the side shooting endless bullets at a constant swarm of nameless bad guys as a hospital literally blows up on top of them. It is the epitome of excesses of Woo and action films in general.
In lesser hands, this would all end up being a mess. But with Woo, there is an almost operatic fluidity to it all. It is chaos, but it feels like concerted chaos as Tequila and Alan slide and fly through floors and stairs dodging storms of bullets and fire. However, as cool as Woo's explosions are, it does get to a point of numbing. By that last act, you can't really feel the stakes anymore and it's all just mindless "rat-tat-tat".
There are also some pointless hints at a romantic relationship between Tequila and a female partner that end up going nowhere. As it has become evident to me with this Woo binge, he continues to fail at building strong and successful romantic relationships while exceling at building strong brotherly connections between his leads. A big part of what makes this film work is Chow Yun-fat's charisma and Leung's emotionally strong performance. The latter brings a good dose of pathos and conflict to his character, even if the script doesn't fully care about it.
This was my fourth Hong Kong Woo outing and it's been an interesting journey so far. Like I said in a previous review, to see his fingerprints and visual flare imitated in other action or crime films has been quite a thing. I certainly wish he would pay just as much attention to his scripts, but I'll settle for the balls-to-the-wall, crazy action setpieces and cool characters for now.
Grade: