ridiculous rating

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Blistering performances.

What's there to be said about John Woo's Hard-Boiled that hasn't already been said? What else is there to say about John Woo in general? His over-the-top and strangely balletic approach to action has been highly influential in the action genre, spawning copycats and rip-offs the world over for decades. Even today, long after Woo's last stylized action extravaganza hit theaters, directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodrigeuz (to name the most obvious ones) still mimic Woo's kinetic approach.Hard-Boiled is Woo's last Hong Kong film before he emigrated to good ol' Hollywood, where his style was utilized with higher production values and restrictions Woo had never had to deal with before. Sure, he went back after a while, but things were never the same (or nearly as fun) after Hard-Boiled. His previous films, most of which starred Chow Yun-Fat, were all exercises in pretentious melodrama and frenetic gun violence.It has all led to this. Hard-Boiled, also starring Chow Yun-Fat, cranks down the melodrama a few notches and kicks the gun violence into high gear. It's darker and has less heart than Woo's previous films, but Woo will still find a way to film a tragic scene in blurry slow motion from multiple angles, and he'll be damned if he doesn't add in the obligatory reaction shot of an emotional onlooker. No matter what movie it is, or what actor, it's always the same look in the John Woo Obligatory Reaction Shot. With emotional jazz music. Don't forget the emotional jazz music.But we don't really watch John Woo's films for the silly melodrama, do we? No, not particularly. Woo's idea of drama is laughable and kind of childish. His dialogue is often just as stupid as his drama is over-the-top waterworks about loyalty and brotherhood and redemption and the like. The brotherly bonds Woo's protagonists share add to the overall appeal of his work and has been copied almost as often as his shootouts. In A Better Tomorrow, it was a cop brother dealing with the road his triad brother has taken--with Chow Yun-Fat kind of slapped in between them as the middle man who wants to keep them both together. A Better Tomorrow II was more of the same. The Killer was a hitman (also Chow) being pursued by and later becoming partners with a dedicated cop.This time, it's Chow playing an angry cop named Sergeant "Tequila" Yuen, eventually teaming up with a triad named Tony, played by Tony Leung, who may or may not be an undercover. Of course, that answer is obvious, though Woo tries to lead us astray at first. They're both caught on the same side and also opposite sides in a triple-threat death match between two warring gangs and the police. Poor Tony gets mixed up with all three at once. Sooner or later, he'll have to pick a side and betray the other two.Sound confusing? Not quite. It's one of those mixed bags where the film is executed in a more complicated fashion than the plot ought to allow. The plot is simplicity itself. Think if The Raid 2 was made in the early 1990's and had blazing guns instead of blurry fists and feet. A crazy gunrunner wants to expand his business and the cops don't want that. Plain and simple.Aside from some decent acting from Leung and Chow--Leung for his emotional performance as a man torn by multiple loyalties, and Chow as a jaded cop who struggles to maintain control of his rage--the only other things worth mentioning are the higher production values and Woo's fantastic gun battles, since the soundtrack is wonky and hard on the ears when it isn't a sad jazzy melody, and the dialogue is a borderline joke at times, both in Cantonese with an English subtitle option AND with an English dub track (the latter of which makes this even more fun to watch just for the unintentionally comedic values it brings).So why the 8/10 rating? I'll tell you why: Hard-Boiled knows what it is, and it is the best of both worlds. It's a dark, brooding crime saga and a highly stylized action feast with some good-natured dark humour and a surprising amount of camp sprinkled in for good measure. Sure, lots of films can get away with the argument that "they know what they are," but few are executed as well as Hard-Boiled was. Hard-Boiled is just a wide load of fun for everyone--or at least, every action fan who's tired of the sterile quick-cut-zoom-close-up saturation style that generally infects most Hollywood films. In this case, it's not the "why," but the "how" and the "what;" it's not the idea, but the execution of that idea. And Woo's execution of Hard-Boiled as a whole is both masterful and excessive. We're treated to wide shots, panning shots, and chaos in its most raw and balletic forms, and of course a two-minute continuous shot of our heroes rampaging through the corridors of a hospital swarming with flying cannon fodder. With Woo, no blank is spared, no explosive is abandoned, and not a single shot is wasted. And I mean EVERY shot--be it from a gun or a camera.As excessive as it is, it's quite amazing that Woo managed to film these things with multiple cameras without so much as a boom mike being present within the frame. He manages this throughout the film, which is two hours, six minutes in total--approximately an hour and a half of which accommodates one of its three major action setpieces (and a fourth brief one somewhere in the middle). Each setpiece is crazier than the one before it, and by the finale, which goes on for a whopping forty minutes; the actors were practically blowing each other up for real. In fact, Woo DID blow up Chow for real (or singed him, at least...) when he reset the explosives for the sole purpose of getting a more authentic reaction from poor Chow.This is basically The Wolf of Wall Street of action films minus the third hour, for both our sakes and, well, everyone else's. I don't think anyone could handle a third hour of this kind of mayhem--not even the best of us. We're out of breath by the second exhilarating hour. By the third, if such a thing existed, there would be nothing left of us but exhausted shells. Action fans looking for a quick fix would find themselves OD'ing three times in a single sitting on this.Is John Woo's Hard-Boiled worthy of being called an action classic alongside films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon? It depends on who you ask. If you asked me, I would tell you the latter options have better characters and dialogue, but the former trumps both of them and several others combined for kinetic thrills and cartoonish mayhem.I wouldn't, however, take Hard-Boiled as seriously.

A cool-as-can-be Yun-Fat Chow ("The Killer") stars as the character with the title personality. Hong Kong police inspector "Tequila" Yuen is out to righteously destroy the gun running mobsters who caused the death of his partner. To do so, he will disregard the words of his superior (Philip Chan, "Double Impact") and team up with Alan (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, "Infernal Affairs"), a cop working *deep* undercover as a Triad hitman. Their primary nemesis will be a brash, psychotic young mobster named Johnny Wong (Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, "The Painted Veil"), who's keeping his not-so-secret stash of weaponry in an unlikely location.This viewer has seen the films made by HK action specialist John Woo in America, but had still needed to experience the original genre films with which he established himself. Suffice it to say, this one lives up to its reputation. We've seen many expertly executed action sequences in the genre over the years, but here Woo takes this element to a whole other level. There's a degree of intensity here that is a true revelation. Squeamish audience members will be dismayed by the sheer volume of beautiful bloodletting on display, but people not bothered by gore will be amazed. This is an *operatically* violent film in which even heroes don't emerge unscathed. Lots of characters will be required to take their lumps before this is over.And yet, the story is an engaging and very involved one, giving its participants some key moments. One of Tequilas' defining characteristics is his affinity for jazz music, the path he would have chosen had he not decided to become a cop instead.Chow and Leung are vibrant performers, and get some great chemistry going. The supporting cast is first-rate, with the distinctively featured Wong making a memorable impression as the bad guy. The only female in a featured role is the gorgeous Teresa Mo as Tequilas' co-worker and girlfriend, but she gets to do some heroic things herself during the extended finale in a hospital.And this finale is not just one set piece, but a whole series of them. It's so dazzling and explosive that you're hardly able to catch your breath.The sight of guys leaping sideways with guns in both hands certainly has become quite the iconic image for fans of the genre. Woo deserves all the accolades that he receives for his home-grown efforts.Nine out of 10.

The awful dub totally took me out of the movie. What the hell? How are people managing to watch it?Rambling.adjective 1. aimlessly wandering. 2. taking an irregular course; straggling: a rambling brook. 3. spread out irregularly in various directions: a rambling mansion. 4. straying from one subject to another; desultory: a rambling novel.

The problem with Hard Boiled isn't that it's a bad film in any way possible. The problem is that I've already seen The Killer and A Better Tomorrow, both of them earlier hit films from the director John Woo. Both of them are absolutely fantastic, and so is Hard Boiled in many ways. Except that nothing in it feels original. Woo is famous for popularizing the Hong Kong style of action in the West, but even his distinctive style can become repetitive.In Hard Boiled a loose cannon cop nicknamed Tequila, played by Chow Yun-fat because every John Woo main character is played by Chow Yun- fat, loses his partner in a gang shoot-out. He decides to take the matter of revenge into his own hands, which doesn't exactly please his superiors. And then the affair gets even more complicated when one of the most lethal assassins the gangs have turns out to have shifting loyalties. The plot is actually pretty good. The loyalties and morals always switching sides, you're never quite sure how the characters are going to react and it's all-around solid entertainment.Plus, the action works. The ending fight scene in the hospital drags a lot, but I cannot say that I didn't enjoy it. And the earlier fight scenes are all pure gold, exactly what you'd expect from John Woo.But, the story and the style do lack that edge. It feels more paint- by-numbers than it feels proper film-making. If this is the first John Woo film you'll see, you're probably going to enjoy it a lot. But he has done much better films, there's no denying that.