I am not a huge expert when it comes to talking about foreign cinema whatsoever. But I know enough about a specific foreign film called Hard Boiled. Hard Boiled is a Hong Kong film released in 1992 where it was first released in Hong Kong and eventually North America. The film was directed by John Woo (Face/Off) and stars Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Tony Leung (Infernal Affairs). The film was a huge success critically worldwide but according to sources was not as big of a box office success in Hong Kong when compared to Woo's other films. The film would receive a sequel in the form of a videogame in 2007 called Stranglehold (of which I have played and would recommend if you are a fan of this film).
Inspector Tequila (Chow Yun-Fat) is a tough cop. While doing his cop work, he finds out about an undercover cop (Tony Leung), who is going undercover as part of a scheme to get into the Triad gang. But this cop's cover is about to be blown.
I seriously cannot express my true feelings for this film. I have not quite seen anything like it before and perhaps never will again. This is a film that proves John Woo is one of the best. He knows how to perfectly film an action scene. There is not any sort of quick and choopy edits with the scenes but rather we get to see everything happen and it is quite beautiful in fact. The scenes are exciting and hard hitting and went beyond. The camera work is absolutely amazing. The effects are even more impressive seeing that this was at a time when action films were not CGI. So when something explodes in a beautiful fireball, that is real. Gunplay is top notch here. Words fail me, so pardon for me being so basic here. Let's just say that if you have seen great action films like Terminator 2, Die Hard, Robocop etc., Hard Boiled is all of those films combined times one hundred in terms of action scenes which are often considered some of the best action scenes of all time and rightfully so. But what is a good film without it's story and characters/acting? Well, the story is a nice thriller that without the action is suspenseful on it's own and is well acted. For me, foreign films (for me, that is films released outside American) are hard to decide whether a performance is good or not simply by line deliveries alone. So what I look for is facial expressions and just body movement. Got to give credit to these actors because their facial expressions and body movements alone tell me that they are good actors. The characters are memorable with Tequila being a hard ass. But oddly enough, the way I see it, this film is much like Big Trouble In Little China where the main actor portrays the supposed main character/hero. In that film, Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton but the real hero and main character in a sense is Dennis Dun's character. With this film, Tony Leung's character Alan, makes it out to be that this film is more about him and I am completely fine with that. One last thing (that I can think of) that is worth mentioning about this film is it's music. We get some decent jazz music and more.
Hard Boiled is perhaps one of the best, if not the best action film of it's kind. It does something unique and rather different with the genre and does so fantastically.
Inspector Tequila (Chow Yun-Fat) is a tough cop. While doing his cop work, he finds out about an undercover cop (Tony Leung), who is going undercover as part of a scheme to get into the Triad gang. But this cop's cover is about to be blown.
I seriously cannot express my true feelings for this film. I have not quite seen anything like it before and perhaps never will again. This is a film that proves John Woo is one of the best. He knows how to perfectly film an action scene. There is not any sort of quick and choopy edits with the scenes but rather we get to see everything happen and it is quite beautiful in fact. The scenes are exciting and hard hitting and went beyond. The camera work is absolutely amazing. The effects are even more impressive seeing that this was at a time when action films were not CGI. So when something explodes in a beautiful fireball, that is real. Gunplay is top notch here. Words fail me, so pardon for me being so basic here. Let's just say that if you have seen great action films like Terminator 2, Die Hard, Robocop etc., Hard Boiled is all of those films combined times one hundred in terms of action scenes which are often considered some of the best action scenes of all time and rightfully so. But what is a good film without it's story and characters/acting? Well, the story is a nice thriller that without the action is suspenseful on it's own and is well acted. For me, foreign films (for me, that is films released outside American) are hard to decide whether a performance is good or not simply by line deliveries alone. So what I look for is facial expressions and just body movement. Got to give credit to these actors because their facial expressions and body movements alone tell me that they are good actors. The characters are memorable with Tequila being a hard ass. But oddly enough, the way I see it, this film is much like Big Trouble In Little China where the main actor portrays the supposed main character/hero. In that film, Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton but the real hero and main character in a sense is Dennis Dun's character. With this film, Tony Leung's character Alan, makes it out to be that this film is more about him and I am completely fine with that. One last thing (that I can think of) that is worth mentioning about this film is it's music. We get some decent jazz music and more.
Hard Boiled is perhaps one of the best, if not the best action film of it's kind. It does something unique and rather different with the genre and does so fantastically.