Hard Boiled Review

Having gone undercover to discover his partner's killer, a cop, Yuen, manages to infiltrate a mob and meets Johnny, a hitman. Eventually they both realise the other is a cop and team up together to bring in the criminals, after discovering a supply of weaponry in the local hospital, but it proves tougher than they expected.

by Mark Salisbury |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1992

Running Time:

126 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

Hard Boiled

The first feature film from critically worshipped Hong Kong director John Woo to receive more than a cursory release in the UK, this is an explosively visceral, operatic tour de force of breath-takingly choreographed violence and blistering ballistic pyrotechnics that begins over-the-top with a tea-house shoot-out that leaves at least 30 people dead, and then escalates into a succession of even more outrageous action set pieces.

In Hong Kong, on the eve of the Communist takeover and the relinquishment of British rule, police detective Yuen (Yun Fat) loses his partner in the tea-house slaughter, and against the advice of his superior, Chan, continues his own investigation into an illegal arms consortium, determined to nail those responsible for his partner's death. Following up a brutal hit, Yuen crosses paths with an undercover cop, Tony (Leung), who, posing as a hit man, has infiltrated the gun-running operation and who, unbeknown to Yuen, passes coded messages back to Chan. When Tony is forced to betray his boss and defect to a rival gang headed by sadistic young pretender Johnny, Yuen uncovers Tony's secret.

Upon learning that a city hospital is the site of Johnny's arsenal, the pair team up for a showdown that culminates in a maelstrom of bullets and delirious destruction. With a body count well into three figures, more firepower than you can shake an Uzi at, and imaginatively realised, adrenaline-pumping action sequences to turn Hollywood's action directors green, this was Woo's most outrageous two hours to date, mixing the frenzied pacing of kung fu flicks with a plethora of cinematic tricks — slow-motion, freeze-frames, wipes — Woo has elevated the action movie into the realm of art. Infinitely more exciting than a dozen Die Hards, action cinema doesn't come any better than this.

Before John Woo went all Hollywood on our ass with the likes of Face/Off and Mission: Impossible II, he made several films in his native Hong Kong, this being arguably the pick of the bunch. Although not as slick as his later films, it's more inventive and stylised and with great early performances from Fat and Leung.

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