I probably should not have watched The Killer and Hard Boiled back to back. They sort of bled together into one long shootout. Hard Boiled starts with an epic shootout in a tea shop and continues with an even bigger one in a warehouse. The 1980’s dress had me thinking Michael Jackson was going to break into Bad in the middle of the triad fight.
The cumulative effect of the two movies also had me a bit “C’mon, is he fighting Stormtroopers?,” “Geez, how many rounds does that pistol have in it?,” and “I don’t know about Hong Kong but I’m pretty sure an undercover officer can’t shoot and kill over 10 people just to prove his bona fides.” I could keep track of how many people Alan murdered in Hard Boiled.
Next time I’ll make sure I give some space between action films.
Still, enjoyable watch.
Violence as poetry, rendered by a master—brilliant and passionate, John Woo’s Hard Boiled tells the story of jaded detective “Tequila” Yuen (played with controlled fury by Chow Yun-fat). Woo’s dizzying odyssey through the world of Hong Kong Triads, undercover agents, and frenzied police raids culminates unforgettably in the breathless hospital sequence. More than a cops-and-bad-guys story, Hard Boiled continually startles with its originality and dark humor.
This definitely had more humor than The Killer.