Nike Air Force Ones Hard Boiled - Review of John

The expert casting also drives the sequences along, as Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung make convincing action heroes sliding down banisters, running along walls and jumping through skylights. Their relentless energy and enthusiasm is there to see on screen and while Chow Yun-Fat may not be the greatest actor in the world; his paring with Woo has brought out the best in both of them.
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The Five Best Jet Li Films
Red Cliff Chi Bi by Director John Woo
Introduction to Hong Kong Cinema
Hard Boiled is Not Woo's Most Successful Film
What makes this so successful and entertaining is that Woo knows exactly what he is doing. There’s no attempt to make this realistic and clearly the film is set in a world of its own. Every single action sequence is more over the top than the last and there’s no visible struggle about the style and direction of these sequences. Woo is undoubtedly an auteur and his singular vision is all too rarely seen in the action genre.
However, while this is more action packed than Woo's other films, from a thematic and story perspective this is one of his weakest. It lacks the depth, substance and spirituality of The Killer and Bullet in the Head and isn’t as groundbreaking as A Better Tomorrow. In a way Hard Boiled is an oddity [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a sort of best of compilation of Woo’s other work. All his characteristics are here to see but they don’t gel together to form a satisfying whole. If it wasn’t for the relentless pace, imagination and sense of fun, Hard Boiled would be pretty flimsy. Thankfully despite the flaws, there’s no sense of going through the motions. Many directors after working in the same genre for so long would start to repeat themselves, producing uninspired work. Not so with Woo, who somehow manages to find new ways of filming gunfight
The set pieces are really what make Hard Boiled such a memorable experience. Lacking any restraint or a sense of realism, characters rarely run out of ammunition, bodies fly through the air as if performing acrobatics and cars seem to blow up at will. Witness the shoot out in the warehouse [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as Tequila manages to take out a entire army single handling, killing everyone with complete disregard for this own whereabouts and safety. Then there’s the two and a half minute continuous take towards the movies climax, as we follow Tequila and Tony as they shoot their way through the hospital, taking out an endless amount of Triads as if they were paper.
John Woo’s career is a strange one, while starting out as a director in the late 1960s; it wasn’t until the 1986 masterpiece, A Better Tomorrow, that he really found his voice. Violent shootouts, slow motion, melodrama and symbolic imagery became signature trademarks that would make Woo one of Hong Kong’s most influential filmmakers. It’s a long time coming for a director to finally find where their talents lie but thankfully Woo continued to produce a range of imaginative and exceptional action movies.
While in charge of taking down a major Triad gang [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Inspector Tequila Yuan (Chow Yun-Fat), encounters Police officer Tony (Tony Leung) working on the inside. They eventually discover a major arms cache hidden in a hospital and work together to stop the gang from causing more bloodshed.
A Brief History of John Woo
This run which started out with A Better Tomorrow, concluded with the 1992 release of Hard Boiled, his most excessive and violent film so far produced. From a purely technical standpoint, this is a monumental achievement. The choreography, the stunts and the set pieces are staggeringly put together and showcase just how exciting action cinema can be.

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