Review of Hard Boiled (1992) by Jordan F — 28 May 2011

If you want an action film with amazing gun scenes, this is your movie! However if you're not into bullets Hard Boiled has got nothing for yah.

Hard boiled stars Chow Yun-Fat as detective 'Tequila' a stylish name to go along with a stylish character. Tequila is a ballsy, cigarette breathing, killing machine. His goal: stop the out of control arms smuggling in Hong Kong. After a huge gun battle leaves a number of dead civilians and officers, the reckless Tequila is removed off the case. Of course no higher up is going to be able to stop Tequila from shooting bad guys as Tequila continues to work behind the scenes. Simultaneously, undercover cop Tony, played by Tony Leung must murder and betray his way to the top of the underground weapons trade in order to take down the big fish.

John Woo is the master of action and Hard Boiled is a perfect case in point. Woo knows we go to the "movies" to see heroes flying through the air with double pistols and unlimited ammo. We're not there to see realism, we're there to watch in slow motion a gun being drawn and bodies drop to the floor in blood. Woo's command over the camera and his ability to squeeze every drop of "coolness" from his action scenes is truly at elite level.

Now that I've praised Woo's knack for action it's time to talk about the bad. Hard Boiled is far from the best action film out there. This film is over 2 hours long and the story is all over the place. In fact Woo had to shut down production for a massive rewrite after they shot the opening scene, then later their writer died in the middle of filming without having finished the script. There are scenes interspersed that perhaps show a little character development but don't do much for the story. It was pretty hard for me to follow the story and it felt uneven all around.

Many action scenes are gratuitously long. Towards the end of the film there is a section where the cops pin the gangsters in a hospital. This chunk of the film takes about 30 minutes! The scenes are just too indulgent stretching the adrenaline reserves of even the most die hard action junkies. Hard Boiled would have benefited from slightly better planning.

The acting is good, Chow Yun-Fat is obviously an Asian powerhouse and Tony has got some impressive acting chops. Overall this film is probably best just skimming through to the action scenes. If you really want to study the camera work you might watch the entire thing all the way through. For me at least the non-action scenes felt like overdramatized filler. However you definitely have to credit Woo for his action. Expendables has got nothing on this film.

Who this film is not for:

-If you don't like guns, no need for you to watch this film.