#4 — Hard Boiled
This is part of an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about a superhero that leads a rebellion by plugging into a computer and downloading free tutorials on fighting, cooking, cleaning, anything you want really, it’s just about how creative you are (The Matrix is a multi-platform experience, the only system requirement is that you not be a coward).
This is one of the ultimate shoot-em-ups featuring one of the ultimate action cops. Inspector “Tequila” Yuen is introduced drinking a glass of his nickname. He holds the title of “Hard Boiled”, which is the highest rank for an action cop — but also comes with a lot of extra baggage, if you read the small print. This is Chow Yun-fat at his coolest with all the cheat codes on, duel-wielding his way through waves of enemies like someone killed his dog and stole his car.
The story gets right to it with an opening tea house shootout that disintegrates almost everything into a fine powder, including Tequila’s partner. That’s why these guys get so boiled. They have to endure the most ballistic, battle-hardening days at the office, only to watch their friends get turned into scrambled eggs. John Woo, being the sensitive artist that he is, gives his leading man something to center himself with. Tequila and his partner played in a jazz band when they weren’t making breakfast in Hell’s Kitchen, and he returns to the night club for solace and remembrance. I really like it when action heroes are given something to do outside their life of crime fighting, specifically something to soften them a little.
Tony Leung plays Alan, an undercover cop acting as a hitman for the Triads. He goes through the same inner turmoil in his own way. After being forced to kill his former boss, who he had a good relationship with, he retreats to his sailboat and goes out on the water where he can scream and cry without anybody seeing him. If I’m being honest, he kinda looks like a dork in that moment, but that’s also why I really like it. Woo’s characters are very vulnerable, they’re allowed to cry ugly and dress like they’re on Saved By The Bell if that’s what they wanna do, no judgment.
He tries to act cool in front of the gang, but he’s sweating under the pressure of his allegiances, betrayals, and the faces of every person he’s killed. In one of my favorite scenes, he finally meets Tequila in his boat, where he has little origami cranes hanging all over the ceiling — representing all the lives he’s taken. Tequila responds by mentioning how he hates writing music for police funerals. They both have their own rituals to cope with death, sometimes at their own hands. This is their coming together moment where they decide that killing sucks, but they’re better at it than everyone else, so why not team up and make sure it isn’t for nothing.
The thematic headspace of these conversations extends to multiple scenes at the jazz club, where Tequila will chat about justice and the price of action copping with the director himself — who cameos as the bartender.
On the other side of this war is Anthony Wong as a triad boss without any of the honor Alan’s “Uncle” Hoi possessed. This is the third appearance for Wong on this countdown and it’s yet another shade of what could be the same performance for a lesser actor. In Full Contact, he’s a sniveling coward existing in the shadow of his friend and filled with resentment. In Exiled, he’s the seasoned veteran having a moral crisis. Here, he gets to be full on evil as the power hungry crime boss that will go the extra mile to ensure he’s feared. He’s backed by a henchman called “Mad Dog” (played by Shaw Brothers legend Philip Kwok!), who lights his cigarettes on flaming cars and gets to wear an evil eye patch in the third act — before demonstrating a surprise-reveal moral code that turns it into an honor-patch.
John Woo, for all of his infinite bullets and high body counts, goes out of his way to make death feel like it matters. The act of killing always retains some measure of significance.
There are three central shootouts anchoring each act of the film, and somehow they seem to increase in magnitude and artistry with each phase. Every shell casing, every shattered pane of glass, and every squib contributes to larger symphony where the frame is always filled with a chaos that has been carefully placed for maximum sensory impact. I’ve never seen so many bodies dive, slide, and roll while pieces of set dressing are exploding and filling the air like snowflakes. It’s just amazing how much movement there is while triggers are being pulled.
With all this iconic action material, you might forget all the other good bits in between. For example, the famous long take shootout at the hospital is just a small part of a final 30 minutes where the whole building basically becomes a war zone — with multiple gun fights, evacuation, hostage rescue, and eventually the entire place getting blown up with C4. Woo also seems to cram almost every signature flourish into the movie, from characters shooting at each from opposite sides of a wall (my personal favorite), to motorcycles being driven into hostiles.
Hard Boiled doesn’t capture the unbridled emotion of The Killer, but it’s a constant high of visceral action that slaps me into attention every time I come back to it. For every classic scene I remember, there’s two or three other moments where I go “oh yeah, I forgot how awesome it is when Tequlia drops into the warehouse like Batman and explodes multiple motorcycles with his shotgun while diving in the air”. This is a towering masterwork of the genre. It’s action with consequence, but also a sense of showmanship.
