Having worked on a gun smuggling case for months, veteran cop, Inspector Tequila Yuen (Chow Yun Fat) is finally making progress in taking down one of the true kingpins in the business, Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang). But just as things are starting to click into place, Yuen is told to back off on the case. He's spent too much time putting his investigation together though and keeps on against orders. He finds out that one of Wong's associates, Tony (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), is actually a cop too working deep undercover. Teaming up, Yuen and Tony go about taking Wong down no matter what the cost, but this mobster has a few tricks up his sleeve too.
Within Woo's code as a director is a familiar plot device that has two opposites working together, putting their differences aside to get the job done. That is by far the best thing going for 'Boiled,' the teaming of Woo favorite Chow Yun Fat and Chiu Wau as the two cops fed up with the system they work for that limits them so severely. Of the two, I thought Tony was the more interesting character -- almost a dry run for the character he'd play 10 years later in Infernal Affairs, the inspiration for The Departed. He's tortured inside by what his job requires of him, and he all he really wants out of life is freedom. Either way, two cool characters who live by a specific code and intend to do their damnedest to live up to it.
John Woo basically equates to action, right? He's known for the crazy, ridiculous, beautifully and immaculately choreographed action sequences that Sam Peckinpah would have been proud of. With a 127-minute long movie, there are plenty of chances for that crazy, ludicrous action. The highlight is not surprisingly the finale, an almost 30-minute long sequence in a hospital full of hostages. Yuen and Tony shoot it out with a not-so-small army of mob gunmen while police and SWAT race into the building to help. I'm guessing about 938,484 bullets were fired overall to film these scenes, an orgy of gunplay, blood squibs and acrobatic spinning deaths.
That's where the stereotypes and cliches come in. First, I know there is no basis in reality in these action scenes. They are supposed to be so intentionally unrealistic that you just sit back and marvel at them. But at what point does it become too much? How many times can you see a bad guy take 75-100 bullets, blood squibs going off left and right, as he spins and groans and grimaces? There's also the good guys who dive and jump and throw themselves through windows without a scratch. All the cliches are here, my favorite being guns that fire over 1,000 rounds without needing to reload. The bad guys -- all of them, each and every one of them -- also suffer from that movie disease that affects nameless henchmen. They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if they were pressed up against the wall.
The whole movie has that overdone feel to it. The score by Michael Gibbs is one of the worst I've ever heard, a mix of soft jazz -- Yuen is a jazz musician in his downtime -- and late 1980s electronica. Good combination, huh? Woo also consistently ends scenes with a quick freeze frame, a weird touch that I just didn't get. The biggest issue though is a general tongue in cheek feel. There are bizarre moments where you can't help but wonder if this should be taken seriously. Toward the end in the hostage situation, Yuen's girlfriend (Teresa Mo), must rescue a maternity ward full of infants. SWAT helps out, rappelling down the side of the building, babies in hand. She yells "I forgot a baby!" at one point, and I almost laughed. Yuen shoots his way out holding the baby the whole way. Woo is at his best with dark and cynical, not light and ironic with humor.
Other cool parts include Philip Kwok as Mad Dog, Wong's top killer, an expert with a variety of weaponry. He has a great scene with Tony in the hospital, a hired killer with a code of ethics of sorts. Philip Chan plays Superintendent Pang, Yuen's superior officer trying to get cases solved while protecting his officers. Chau-Sang is the hamming it up villain, looking to be enjoying himself. I loved Woo's The Killer but couldn't go along with this one the same way. Disappointed I didn't like this one more.
Hard Boiled <---trailer (1992): **/****
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