Hard Boiled

Stereotypes and cliches have to start somewhere when it comes to movies, don't they? That thought kept coming up as I watched director John Woo's 1992 action classic Hard Boiled. This is an action movie that has influenced countless other movies while also sampling for countless ones before it. Over the top is one thing, but this one was ridiculous.

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): **/****

Infernal Affairs

After a career of films that were also deserving of Oscar status, Martin Scorcese finally won his best directing Oscar in 2006 for The Departed.  There was a sense he won the award as much as a career achievement award as opposed to just Departed on its own.  It was a great, well-made, exciting movie, but was it better than Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, or Raging Bull among others?  And for the cherry on top, this wasn't an original Scorcese flick.  I'll admit I was disappointed to find out it was a remake of a Hong Kong movie made just four years before, 2002's Infernal Affairs.

Seeing a remake first can't help but impact your reaction, your judgment when seeing the original.  Comparing the U.S. versus the Hong Kong version is easier though.  For one, the story was changed very little from original to remake, but something else caught me by surprise.  Watching The Departed, you're familiar with all these great actors, Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon, Wahlberg, Sheen, Baldwin, and many more.  You have a preexisting movie relationship with them, but being dropped into Hong Kong Departed, there's no issue there.  Yes, I knew where the story was going, but it's so well-made, so well-handled with all its twists and turns that it is as fun to watch as the first time I watched The Departed.

Two young men are about to go down very different roads.  Yan tested so well at the police academy that he's been chosen to work deep undercover as a mole in the most infamous Hong Kong gangs.  Lau is a member of the Triad gang, maybe the most powerful in the country, and will work his way up the police force as a source for his gang.  Years pass, and the two men know the other exists, but that's it.  There's nothing else.  Yan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) has worked for three years with crime boss Sam (Eric Tsang) and is doing his best to take the gang down piece by piece, protecting himself all the time. Lau (Andy Lau) has been tasked with finding the mole in the police force by the only man who knows Yan's identity, Inspector Wong (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang). Both men have laid their lives on the line, but can either get out alive before they're discovered?

The characters are familiar, the storyline more than recognizable, and even the stylish shooting techniques are there.  Scorcese of course put his own unique spin on his version, trademarks like certain tracking shots or even just using the Rolling Stones as part of his soundtrack.  What pulled me into 'Infernal' was that where Departed tended to drift at times, this is a streamlined version of the story.  There are no wasted scenes, no subplots that don't add much to the story.  Directors Wai-keung Lau and Alan Mak present this great back and forth story with countless scenes just dripping with tension that keep you on the edge of your seat, leaving the slower moving relationship back home scenes out to dry. All it takes is one slip up by either man, and it's game over.  The movie flows along at 101 minutes and it feels like it goes by even quicker than that.

Four main characters stand out from the rest here where Departed had a lot of supporting characters.  The acting is perfect here, especially Wai as Yan, the deep undercover cop.  He is that right mix of angst and worry, the result of his job slowly wearing him down, and confidence and guts to do what he has to.  You're rooting for this character, still somehow knowing that this will never end well for him.  The brother -- maybe even father -- relationship that develops with Inspector Wong provides one of the movie's gut-wrenching scenes too, credit to Chau-Sang for making this great character without much screentime. Lau as Lau (original choice of names) isn't as good a character only because he never comes across as particularly bad or evil.  Matt Damon was surprisingly evil in the part, and you can't help but compare.  Tsang hams it up as crime boss Sam, that bad guy you love to hate.

This was my first real exposure to a Hong Kong crime thriller, and I came away very impressed. Shooting in Hong Kong, the locations are crowded, claustrophobic and packed in tight, giving me a feeling of being closed in just like the characters are.  It's a stylish urban setting that acts almost like another character in the story.  The violence isn't overdone and could even be considered tame, leaving the gore to the viewer's imagination.  Certain scenes stand out (SPOILERS like THIS one) with this great visual eye. The continuing use of reflections and windows keeps popping up, but it's never overdone.  There are fade to blacks and some timely uses of slow motion, all aided by Kwong Wing Chan's appropriately subdued score. Just on a pure movie basis -- characters and story aside -- Infernal Affairs is a gem.

SPOILERS about the ending SPOILERS Scorcese's movie threw you for a loop by basically killing every main character in about 12 seconds flat.  Infernal Affairs goes down a different route, one I didn't like at first.  Yan gets killed trying to prove he's in fact a cop while Lau escapes untouched.  Maybe it's because Wahlberg killing Damon in The Departed was such a solid ending, but I wanted to see Lau go down.  Then I thought about it, and this ending works just as well.  It's the last line that sells it, damning Lau to a lifetime of self-hate and doubt.  The movie is still fresh in my head, but right now, I'll say I liked Infernal Affairs as much, if not more, than The Departed.  Either way, it is a great movie.

Infernal Affairs <---trailer (2002): ****/****

Hero

Stylish violence can be an amazing thing to watch in a movie when handled right.  There can be almost a sense of beauty in violence, or what some reviewers have called 'the ballet of death.' Just look to Bonnie and Clyde or The Wild Bunch or more recently The Matrix for what can be achieved when violence is elevated to something more than just brute strength.  Of course, with any good thing comes the bad.

That's where I'll start with 2002's Hero, a Chinese film set in ancient China before the first emperor took power.  The reviews painted this as one of the most beautifully filmed, stylish movies to hit theaters in years.  I'm a sucker for a good-looking movie so I gave it a shot.  Well, the reviews were dead on because it is breathtaking at times with its use of color.  But that's about all I liked because the stylish violence is set to overkill and ends up turning a 98-minute movie into one that seemed much, much longer thanks to some annoying storytelling techniques and an over reliance on slow-mo action.

For years, the king of the Qin province (Daoming Chen) has lived in fear under the constant threat of assassination.  Years before, three assassins vowed to kill him in hopes of preventing his power growing, and ever since he has been unable to lead a regular life.  But a prefect from a small province and a master swordsman known only as Nameless (Jet Li) has claimed that he killed all three assassins and is seeking an audience with the king to tell him the stories of his battles.  The king agrees, wanting to meet the man who has given him his life back.  Nameless sits down and tells his story but something doesn't quite add up as his retellings unfold.

SPOILER ALERT Stop reading now for a paragraph or so SPOILER ALERT This isn't actually a huge spoiler because it's revealed about halfway through the movie, but Nameless did not in fact kill the three assassins.  Their deaths were faked in order to get Nameless an audience with the king so that he can get close enough to do what they've all sought to do for so many years.  The king figures this out rather quickly but his curiosity gets the best of him so he must know what has actually happened and what their plan actually was.  END OF SPOILERS

Some reviews compared Hero's storytelling technique to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon where different characters tell their perspective of a story and the viewer is left to decide for themselves what really happened.  Rashomon is held in high regard, and I hated it so take that for what it's worth in the rest of this review.  Hero amps it up even more with Nameless regaling the king with his brave stories of how he took out the three assassins.  Then the king figures it out, and basically wipes away the first 45 minutes of the movie.  Everything we just watched never happened.  It sounds like an attempt to be unique and bring something new to the story, but for me it comes across as lazy.  Tell the story you want to tell and be done with it.

Besides the fact that half of the movie never happened, I was pissed off even more at the never-ending action sequences.  Watch the first showdown HERE for an example of what the whole movie is like.  In small doses, this action could be and should be great once you get past the ridiculous flying, slow-motion fighting.  Nameless fights three master assassins, Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai, a real bright spot and my favorite character) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), over and over again and then the assassins fight and bicker among themselves, argue over what to do, and then do what they'd planned to do in the first place.  Big old 360 here.  The ending is a cop-out and should have been much better.

This highly stylized action would have been much better in smaller doses because at the most basic levels these scenes are something to behold with great camera work and some impressive stunts.  But piled on top of each other one after another, it gets incredibly repetitive.  I realize with a martial arts movie you should expect lots of action scenes, but there's got to be a limit somewhere.  A gorgeous filmmaking style and visual eye alone does not make this movie worthwhile.    

Hero <----trailer (2002): */****