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): **/****

The Killer

My lone experience with director John Woo has been in his ventures into the U.S., most notably Mission: Impossible 2 and Face/Off.  Neither are classic movies, but I enjoyed both of them.  That's not to say I'm not aware of Woo's other movies, I just never sought them out.  As a fan of just about any sort of action movie, I've stumbled across his name countless times, and finally got around to actually watching one of his non-American movies.  I started at the top with most likely is most well-respected -- critically and among fans -- movie, 1989's The Killer.

Above all else, Woo is known for an ability to assemble an action sequence like few others can. As a fan of director Sam Peckinpah, I thought I had seen my fair share of epic slow-motion violence accompanied by excessive, graphic uses of blood squibs.  Well, that was until I saw this flick.  Some of the best, most interestingly choreographed gunfights I've ever seen dominate the movie.  Woo must have been impacted by Peckinpah's movies -- especially The Wild Bunch -- because not only is the effect felt on the action, but on the story too.  Here though instead of the wild west, it's Hong Kong with hired killers filling in for aging gunfighters.  Dealing with similar themes and topics, The Killer is must-see for action fans, especially anyone familiar with Peckinpah.

After years of working as a hired killer, Ah Jong (Chow Yun Fat) has grown tired with the business as the realization what he's done during his career wears him down. He has unwillingly taken on one more hit, a high-ranking mob official with ties in the government mostly out of guilt.  During a recent hit, a beautiful young singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh) was blinded, and Jong intends to use the money he earns helping her pay for a vision-repairing surgery. The hit is a set-up though by his superiors, and Jong barely survives. He manages to escape though but is now facing problems on all sides.  The mob and a hit squad is closing in, he doesn't have the necessary money for Jennie's surgery, and a persistent but similarly disillusioned cop, Inspector Ying (Danny Lee), is hot on his tail. There's only one way out for Jong, and that's doing what he does best, picking up a gun again.

My first reaction reading the plot of this movie was a little disappointed.  This was a story seen in countless other cop/crook movies like Heat, The Boondock Saints, and any number of Melville crime thrillers from the 1960s and 1970s.  And really, Woo doesn't bring anything new to the table.  The story is solid if unspectacular, but Woo is so clearly comfortable with the setting that it works in spite of the 'been there, done that' feel to it.  It deals with issues that are regularly seen in westerns, men with a code of honor and living, making the right decision regardless of the difficult consequences.  They are brothers in arms who bond through their similar beliefs, principles and actions.  The end result is a costly one often enough, but for these men sacrificing for what they believe is right is worth it when all is said and done.

Besides the action, the biggest similarity The Killer has to The Wild Bunch is the relationship between the two main characters.  Where William Holden and Robert Ryan played the roles originally, Yun Fat and Lee are channeling those two American actors.  Yun Fat is the troubled killer struggling desperately to get away from the life and profession he is so good at.  He has no equal but lives by a code that allows him to continue to kill, hopefully dispatching the bad and not the good.  Lee is the police inspector fed up with the behind the scenes politicking on the force.  In Ah Jong, his Ying sees everything that could be right with such a bizarre profession.  Ying chases and chases, but by the end these two not so different men are fighting alongside the other, not against each other.  The relationship provides some touching moments as the duo faces almost certain death, including an incredibly moving ending.

Just like Peckinpah though, Woo clearly has a fascination with violence and its depiction.  Peckinpah became synonymous with extreme, graphic, slo-mo violence, and Woo follows suit.  A 'ballet of death' indeed. The action through the first hour is solid but nothing too memorable.  The last 30-45 minutes take this movie to another level with two extended shootouts, starting HERE with Jong and Ying battling a small army of hit-men. As good as that firefight is, the scene that has become one of the more iconic shootouts in movie history is the finale in a candle-lit church with slow-motion, blood squibs and symbolic white doves flying through the scene.  Watch it HERE (SPOILERS obviously) and continue it into Part 11.

Some directors just know how to direct action, and this is Woo at his absolute best.  The action is so over the top and ridiculous that it borders on the cartoonish, but because Woo and his cast and crew commit to what's happening on-screen it avoids becoming cliched.  This style of action/violence clearly has impacted just about every action movie released in the 20-plus years since, and it's easy to see why.  Stylish in a way that somehow makes the graphic depictions of violence like a work of art, the church shootout is one of the best action sequences ever.  The ending delivers one cruel twist of fate to a key character (I'm cynical, but it even bothered me in how cruel it is), but the final shot of the movie will almost certainly hit you square in the stomach.  Surprising? No, but it's moving even knowing what's about to happen.  An action classic and a great introduction to the films of John Woo.

The Killer <---trailer (1989): *** 1/2 /****