Hard Boiled

Neat action and cool lines. Both John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat are on their best form here. Technically almost perfect action scenes, ingenious and still surprises after all these years. I’m telling you, this movie suited me down to the ground. Tequila’s apt remarks were really to my taste. A classic that I plan on watching again soon. (01/25/2014)

Hard Boiled is a perfectionistic work that overshadows all other action movies. It is perhaps impossible for a film that is so long and packed with shootouts not to come across as over-the-top and spasmodic and not become boring after some time. But this one does the exact opposite. The last half hour is proof that John Woo is not from this planet. (11/10/2003)

A pioneer of the action genre, with amazing camera and editing work, revolutionary shooting sequences, long shots without cuts, breathtaking stunt work. Before all the modern Hunts, Bonds, Bournes, and Wicks, there was a detective with a cigarette in his mouth and two guns on his belt who set the direction for what action films would look like decades later. (02/13/2005)

Tequila slammers, toothpicks, babe in arms, hundreds of smashed tiles and thousands of spent rounds. A perfect piece, down to the smallest detail, from John Woo, Fat and everybody else involved. This ode to action is incredible not only for a John Woo movie. Especially the brothers’ finale in the hospital is inimitable and unmatchable. If you are used to politically correct American productions, you will be shocked by the mass shooting of civilians or the brutal action overflowing with visuals typical for John Woo. Often in his pictures the action element plays just a supporting role to a drama involving two men, and here it is the same, although that motif takes much more of a back seat here. Even the scenes with kids, which elsewhere would be superficially cheap, are handled perfectly here. The entire movie gets by without any humorous element, with the honorable exception of two “sorta" snappy lines at the very end. The only negative aspect of this movie is the rather too disruptive music. One of the zeniths of Hong Kong “gun" movies. (04/25/2005)

It's excellent, maybe the best of all the movies that John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat have collaborated on, but I can't help but feel like when you see one of their filmographies, it's like seeing almost all of them. The action scenes are absolutely breathtaking, you really feel like human bodies are being torn apart. Especially towards the end, it's a violent orgy. However, it's not a film that would make me have an orgasm. The action choreography is great, but I might have expected a little more from it. (02/13/2014)