Hard boiled

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Hard Boiled (}; }; literally: Hot-Handed God of Cops) is a 1992 action film by director John Woo. It is the last film Woo directed in his native Hong Kong before relocating to Hollywood.

Contents

1 About the film
2 Trivia
3 Cast includes
4 See also
5 External links
6 Notes

About the film

It is considered one of the best and perhaps definitive heroic bloodshed movies of all time, if only for the bloodshed. It increased John Woo's and Chow Yun-Fat's popularity outside Hong Kong, and gained a unique cult status among genre fans worldwide, though critically viewed "it lacks the emotional resonance of The Killer or the powerful nihilism of Bullet in the Head." (Ross Chen [link]) What starts off as a stylish though mundane "cop-undercover cop duo versus triads" flick turns out to be a two-hour long, 230 body count action extravaganza, built around three major action setpieces: the opening teahouse shootout, the warehouse betrayal in the middle and the final thirty-minute hospital shootout that ends the film.

A descriptive quote with reference to the title (God of Cops) sees Chow Yun-Fat yet again in the role of a sort of god^{[#endnote_god]}, which has by now become a cliché: "Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God".

Hard Boiled has a famous action shot in the burning hospital near the end of the movie. It is a single handheld camera shot lasting 2 minutes and 42 seconds that follows the characters of Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung as they alternately fight off enemies in frenetically choreographed action and engage in emotional dialogue, through many corridors and rooms spanning two levels of the hospital, as well as the intervening elevator ride. On the Criterion DVD, an entire chapter (appropriately titled Two minutes, forty-two seconds) is devoted to this single shot.

John Woo is currently collaborating on a spin-off to Hard Boiled, in the console game Stranglehold, which features the character of Tequila. There are also rumors of an official sequel to the film, but Woo has mentioned that he will not direct it.

Trivia

The film was also known as God of Guns (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: }}}; pinyin: ).
The movie was referenced in Infernal Affairs (2002), not only with Tony Leung's character again playing a cop working undercover for the triads, but an obvious homage to the scene where Leung's character receives surveillance gear from his superintendent along with a birthday gift. The only difference being that in Hard Boiled Tony Leung receives a lighter and in Infernal Affairs he receives a watch.
There is a Taiwanese DVD that includes a cut of the film that is 5 minutes longer, feature radically different editing in the final hospital section of the film, with a few more shots of the violence ensuing making up the extra footage.
Though it was only referred to after its UK video release, the film Last Blood directed by Wong Jing starring Andy Lau is sometimes released or referred to under the title Hard Boiled 2: Last Blood (despite being released earlier than Hard Boiled).
The literal Chinese translation for the title is Hot-Handed God of Cops, which is the same as the Chinese title for the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry.
In the video game [[The Matrix: Path of Neo]], the weapons training level is an exact replica of the opening teahouse shootout in this film, down to Neo wearing the same outfit as Chow Yun-Fat.
John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat are creating a videogame sequel to Hard Boiled, John Woo's Stranglehold

Cast includes

Chow Yun-Fat
Tony Leung
Teresa Mo
Philip Chan
Philip Kwok
Anthony Wong
Bowie Lam
Bobby Au-Yeung
Ng Shui Ting
Kwan Hoi-Shan
Tung Wei

External links

[Barbara Scharres essay on criterionco.com]

Notes

↑ After A Better Tomorrow (1986) ("A god is someone who controls his destiny.") and God of Gamblers (1989)