fludd.org - Movie Review

For the moment, this gunfight movie is technically the last collaboration between director John Woo and Hong Kong legendary action star Chow Yun-Fat. The film, which Woo describes as «30% plot and 70% action», is a synthesis of his brilliant career in Hong Kong. As opposed to The Killer which was a hot bed for drama, strong feelings and deep stylistics in the action scenes, Hard-Boiled is quite a different from Woo’s other films. As a final result, you might not necessarily get the best Woo-Chow movie in terms of script, but it is certainly the most entertaining action movie of all time that I’ve seen.

Besides offering entertainment with a strangely average budget that has nothing to see with Hollywood, the action scenes are really the element that get Hard-Boiled’s storyline moving at an extremely quick pace that you’re not used to see as a Westerner. As opposed to The Killer, John Woo is not researching at all cost artistic exaggerations (that often lead to an enjoyable lack of realism) or visual beauty. As a matter of fact, Hard-Boiled is a huge pile of extremely violent action scenes. In addition to that fact, brutality meets realism in this well directed action flick. All in all, despite a slight change of style, John Woo still manages to astonish us with his creativity (those who saw the final gunfight in the hospital know what I’m talking about).

If a contemporary comparison had to be made, there’s one evidence that leaps to our eyes after the movie is over. A quick analysis, albeit not professional, has made me come to think that Hard-Boiled is to John Woo what House of Flying Daggers is to Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Not one Less). Don’t you see the common similarity with these two memorable movies? Well, the fact is that just like Zhang’s flick that went on to be China’s official entry at the 2004 Oscar ceremony, Hard-Boiled is a movie animated by a very thin storyline. Furthermore, the point of that story is certainly not to astound us by its artistic beauty, but rather to entertain us without any pretence. In the end, you can tell very easily that Woo, just like a child in a daycare centre, uses this movie just to play fast and loose the way he wants (and it works!!!).

Now, let’s put aside the comparisons with House of Flying Daggers in order to talk about the differences between John Woo’s previous works and this movie. John Woo’s The Killer - perhaps his best movie ever, artistically speaking – was a movie running with characters who make a strong usage of their feelings and their relation with the other characters to get the plot moving. As for Hard-Boiled, the evolution of the characters is extremely different. Evidently, their subjective nature rather changes, as the storyline advances, through their actions.

Unlike what one might believe, the characters are hopefully not artificial, which means that they’re not entirely made up from clichés. While the characters of The Killer were like “ethically and morally correct” heroes that all of us would like to resemble, the same remark definitely doesn’t apply to those of this movie. In fact, Woo left us with characters that are extremely funny and ridiculous without looking to create this humoristic effect on viewers. Unfortunately, the characters, despite keeping us amused with their multiple flaws (ex: look how Chow Yun-Fat’s character is really particular as a cop) often lack a certain psychological depth, since their psychological morphology is explicitly too simple.

However, this doesn’t mean that the all-star cast of Hard-Boiled delivers a forgettable performance. As officer Tequila, Chow Yun-Fat, a legendary actor who definitely impressed a whole generation of people from the East and the West, doesn’t have the margin of manoeuvre that he had to showcase his real talent. Nonetheless, let it be said that this Chinese actor that I profoundly respect burns the screen with his undeniable charisma and the strong personality that he gives to his character through the effective nuances in the interpretation of Tequila. Simply put, Chow Yun-Fat is really playing the hero that any of us would like to work with as a partner.

As Tony, the experienced “killer” who works more or less (just watch the movie to see why I wrote this) for the triads, Tony Leung (2046) is definitely the member of the cast who makes Hard-Boiled work. Of all the members, it is quite strange to say that Leung has the most complex character that requires a real talent to bring nuances into the performance. As we all know it, Tony Leung doesn’t fail to do that job either with the expression of his voice or his eyes. Besides, Tony Leung single-handedly makes this memorable movie one that is worth watching mostly because of his inspiring methods to hide and reveal simultaneously many facets of his psychologically torn character’ personality.

Finally, I know that you might not agree with what I’m going to say, but Hard-Boiled really beats to death any given gunfight movies not just from Hollywood, but also from the West although it might not win an award in an international film festival because it is only meant to entertain. In fact, this looks like a two-in-one offer: a fairly good storyline (despite being a little bit unrealistic at the end) and gripping action scenes that bear the incomparable stylish signature of John Woo (A Better Tomorrow). The movie looks so realistic that during the final shootout scene, the camera moves in a way that makes you think that it is an event that is shot live on the news! Warning: even though you put your TV’s volume at a normal level, you’ll see that the firing sound of “unsilenced” guns is exceedingly high. It’s sad to say that, but this is one of the last movies, along with Face/Off, that John Woo did before he got completely “lost in translation” in Hollywood.

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