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| HARD BOILED (1992) |
Early in the violent and entertaining Hong Kong crime thriller “Hard-Boiled,” police Inspector “Tequila” Yuen joins his partner Benny at a local tea house where they plan to arrest a ring of gun smugglers.
After an ambush from another gang member, an explosive gun fight breaks out. Firey-hot tea pots slam into gangsters’ faces. Guns blaze. People, a lot of people, die. The action is over-the-top, heightened by slow-motion effects.
Then we see one of director John Woo’s signature shots: Chow Yun-Fat, who stars as Tequila, slides down the railing of a flight of stairs, a loaded gun in each hand furiously firing away.
Welcome to violent world of the Hong Kong cop and gangster films of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a genre that produced a series of rich, viscerally exciting movies unlike anything seen on screen in the West.
Cars crash, guns fire and the body count steadily rises. These are highly stylized, extremely violent action films. And they are incredibly fun to watch.
