"Hard Boiled" (aka "Lat sau san taam") is indeed the embodiment of the pinnacle of director John Woo's career and it is definitely one of the movies that helped define the action genre of the 1990s for the Hong Kong cinema.
While realisms takes a backseat throughout the course of "Hard Boiled", then the action and adrenaline takes the lead, and those things do carry the movie quite well. Everything in the movie is so outrageous that realisms has no chance of bidding in with anything. Bullet count? Don't even bother, because that is non-existing here. So every single handgun and rifle has infinite ammo, well right until it becomes a pivotal scene for the storyline, then suddenly there is no more ammo.
The movie starts out in a high pace and it doesn't really slow down. So that was a great accomplishment on behalf of director John Woo.
The storyline, while it is not the most complex of storylines and plot ever to have been constructed, is actually entertaining and does have some nice turns to it. Was it predictable? It most certainly was. But it is the type of storyline that picks you up and carry you along for a great action-packed thrill ride.
One of the more impressive things about "Hard Boiled" aside from the amazing action sequences, was the cast. They had Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung and Anthony Wong together in this movie; three of the major names in Hong Kong cinema.
"Hard Boiled" is actually a rather violent movie if you take a step back and look at it from an aesthetic viewpoint. There is a lot of violence in the movie and a lot of innocent bystanders do get gunned down throughout the course of the movie. But doesn't that sort of add some perverse sense of realism as well, because psychotic people would actually succumb to such wanton random violence and bloodshed.
I have watched "Hard Boiled" many times, and return to it every now and again solely because of the impressive action and the ultra fast pace that there is to the movie. And "Hard Boiled" was actually one of the reasons why I have such a profound and deep love for the Hong Kong cinema.
While realisms takes a backseat throughout the course of "Hard Boiled", then the action and adrenaline takes the lead, and those things do carry the movie quite well. Everything in the movie is so outrageous that realisms has no chance of bidding in with anything. Bullet count? Don't even bother, because that is non-existing here. So every single handgun and rifle has infinite ammo, well right until it becomes a pivotal scene for the storyline, then suddenly there is no more ammo.
The movie starts out in a high pace and it doesn't really slow down. So that was a great accomplishment on behalf of director John Woo.
The storyline, while it is not the most complex of storylines and plot ever to have been constructed, is actually entertaining and does have some nice turns to it. Was it predictable? It most certainly was. But it is the type of storyline that picks you up and carry you along for a great action-packed thrill ride.
One of the more impressive things about "Hard Boiled" aside from the amazing action sequences, was the cast. They had Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung and Anthony Wong together in this movie; three of the major names in Hong Kong cinema.
"Hard Boiled" is actually a rather violent movie if you take a step back and look at it from an aesthetic viewpoint. There is a lot of violence in the movie and a lot of innocent bystanders do get gunned down throughout the course of the movie. But doesn't that sort of add some perverse sense of realism as well, because psychotic people would actually succumb to such wanton random violence and bloodshed.
I have watched "Hard Boiled" many times, and return to it every now and again solely because of the impressive action and the ultra fast pace that there is to the movie. And "Hard Boiled" was actually one of the reasons why I have such a profound and deep love for the Hong Kong cinema.