4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Today is the 63rd birthday of one of the great Hong Kong actors, Tony Leung Chiu-wai! “Little” Tony, as he is affectionately called in Hong Kong, has won a total of eight Hong Kong Film Awards, with six of those being for Best Actor and two for Best Supporting Actor. He has also turned into a giant of international cinema, as evidenced by him receiving a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. He’s an incredibly brave and powerful artist, one of the very best in the business!
John Woo’s HARD BOILED (1992) ends with a hospital siege and shootout that goes on for about 30 minutes. The action is very intense, and Woo creates a sequence within this set piece that goes almost 3 minutes without a single cut. It’s a masterpiece of directorial control by the legend, and it’s performed perfectly by Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Phillip Kwok and a large team of stuntmen. And it just looks really cool! Enjoy my friends!
John Woo’s action classic HARD BOILED (1992) has a pretty simple story line. Two men are trying to stop a dangerous gun smuggling operation headed by murderous psychopath Johnny (Anthony Wong). One of those men is Tequila Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat), a hard-boiled cop who takes his job especially serious after his partner and best friend is killed in a shootout with Johnny’s men in a teahouse. The other is undercover cop Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a man who is in so deep that he can pull off a hit as easy as eating breakfast and who doesn’t even remember his own birthday until he’s reminded by his police department handler, Superintendent Pang (Phillip Chan). After almost killing each each other a couple of times, they end up agreeing to work together to try to stop Johnny once and for all.
First and foremost, HARD BOILED is one of the great action films. Relationships are given some lip service, but John Woo is mostly interested in creating incredible action sequences. HARD BOILED contains three action sequence masterpieces that still, thirty three years after it was released, have to be seen to be believed. I mentioned the teahouse earlier. The most iconic scene from the film can be found in this sequence as Tequila slides down a railing, two guns blazing, in order to take out some dangerous killers. This action sequence lets us know right off the bat that no human being is safe from the carnage, whether you be a cop, a criminal, a waiter, or just a local patron enjoying your song birds and a warm beverage. It’s an incredible opening that would dwarf the entirety of most action films. The next masterpiece takes place in a warehouse where Johnny is stealing the arms inventory of a local competitor, and undercover cop Alan switches his allegiance from his old boss to Johnny. We’re introduced to Johnny’s enforcer Mad Dog (Shaw Brothers legend Phillip Kwok), a true badass with a hint of honor, and of course Tequila shows up thanks to his informant letting him know what’s about to go down. One incredible stunt sequence after another ultimately leads to Tequila and Alan being face to face, with guns pointed at each other’s heads. When Tequila finds his chamber empty and Alan doesn’t kill him, he knows he’s dealing with an undercover. The final masterpiece sequence and conclusion to the film takes place in a hospital where Johnny has stashed his entire arsenal in its basement. This goes on for at least 30 minutes as our heroes may take on henchman on one floor, before taking a quick break as they ride to the next floor and start all over again. Once again, innocent lives are constantly put in danger, including doctors, nurses, handicapped patients and newborn babies in the maternity ward. The most memorable scenes in this section include the “no-cut” action sequence of almost 3 minutes where Tequila and Alan blow away countless bad guys (mostly), as well as Alan’s face off with Mad Dog with a bunch of handicapped patients in between them, and Tequila’s heroic jump from the 3rd floor while clutching a newborn baby. These three action masterpiece sequences are the reason to watch HARD BOILED. I’ve read before that this is John Woo’s “calling card to Hollywood.” About 16 months after HARD BOILED was released in Hong Kong, Woo’s first Hollywood film, HARD TARGET (1993), was released in America.
Another great reason to watch HARD BOILED is the incredible teaming of Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, two of Hong Kong’s greatest and most decorated actors. While Chow is most closely associated with directors John Woo and Ringo Lam, Leung has done amazing work for Woo, Director Wong Kar-Wai, and many others. Each actor has had their share of international success as well. Leung does the heavy lifting in HARD BOILED as the morally conflicted undercover cop, while Chow mostly relies on his incredible charisma as the badass Supercop. It’s a real treat watching them play off of each other under the most action packed of circumstances.
It’s probably obvious, but I give HARD BOILED my highest of recommendations. I hadn’t watched it for a few years before today, and I had the best time revisiting these incredible scenes. Action movies just don’t get better than this.
In between everything else I do, I read about a book a week, mainly mystery fiction. Current favorites include James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Janet Evanovich, and John Sandford, all with their own unique styles, and all masters of the genre. But when I need a good laugh, I pick up Christopher Moore. I first became aware of Moore’s work with his brilliant 2002 novel LAMB, OR THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL, an irreverent satire narrated by Jesus’s good buddy Biff that’s as outrageous as it sounds, and sinfully funny to boot.
Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in “Out of the Past” (RKO 1947) have nothing on Sammy and The Cheese!
This time around, Moore goes from taking on the Scriptures to the hard-boiled world of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The novel is set in 1947 San Francisco, a very good year for noir
While looking over at something to watch as the night wore on I came across a film that I still consider to this day one of the best action films ever made. People may try and guess that I’m looking at a Michael Bay flick (wrong). Maybe it’s a John McTiernan classic 80’s actioner (wrong again). Or maybe it’s one of those Luc Besson Euro-action flicks which became such the rage amongst the hipster cineaste during the 90’s (wrong thrice). No the film I’m talking about comes from Hong Kong and was the last actin film directed by the master of bullet ballet himself, John Woo, before he left for Hollywood to try his luck.
The film is Hard Boiled and it has so many iconic film scenes that it would be difficult to just choose which one I love. So, I decided to go right at the beginning and picked the “Tea House” gun fight which opens up the film. To call this scene awesome would be an understatement. The scene looks like chaos the moment the first gun goes off, but looking at this scene over and over one cannot help but wonder at the musical-like dance choreography in how the gun fight unfolds from beginning to end.
It’s not a surprise that the musicals of the 50’s and 60’s were some of John Woo’s favorite films and it shows in how he choreographs and films the scene. Chow Yun Fat as the coolest cop ever to walk a beat with the kickass nickname of “Tequila” almost goes through the scene like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly except this time the lead is not dancing in the rain or with Ginger Rogers, but shooting and weaving his way through a tea house full of Triad gangsters.
Two of the coolest sequences in this scene would be the body grind down the stair bannister and then the final climactic sequence in the end. Also, the way Chow Yun Fat and the main gangster look as they shoot it out reminds one of samurai dueling each other right down to the very stance they sometimes use.
Michael Bay and his supporters could learn and thing or two from Woo and this scene.
Through the Shattered Lens 