Hard Boiled

Something something egg-pun

As I write this, Britain has entered into lockdown, my day job have placed me on a furlough and i'm unsure when i'll next get to see a pack of toilet roll on the shelves of my local Supermarket. Their is tangible sense of paranoia purveying through the country over who will be next to catch COVID-19. So now I have WAY more time to watch movies and TV and work through my unplayed games. I would say its great, but i'd be lying if I didn't say I miss being able to go to pubs. Or shops. Or parks. So anyway, John Woo's Hard Boiled is bloody brilliant.

Released in 1992 by Golden Princess Film Production (why do all Hong Kong production companies have gold in the name?), Hard Boiled stars Woo mainstay Chow Yun-fat as Inspector “Tequila” Yuan. Tequila is your archetypal loose cannon cop come clarinet player for the HKPD, who also happens to be really good at dual wielding and jumping sideways whilst doing so. Whilst trying to investigate the flow and sale of guns in Hong Kong he comes up against Alan, played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, an equally skilled gunman who appears to be working for the triads. Motives are revealed, shots are fired and it all ends with a siege at a hospital.

The plot is honestly a little thin and uninteresting at times, but its main purpose is to hold the set pieces together. Think of it like Bao, the outside is just bread but the filling is what counts. And Hard Boiled is bursting at the seams with action. The gunfights are as spectacular and gory as any of the countless films that they have inspired. It should also be noted that the sound design in the fights is what really sells them. Every bullet fired has a fantastically loud shot and impact which really amps up the tension and adds a certain cartoonish fun factor to it all. And the camerawork conveys the chaos of the fight with plenty quick cuts and pans, but also has close ups of characters you recognise reacting to the situation. The result of this is basically a chaos you can keep track of, and it makes the shoot outs feel more exciting and impactful. And that 5 minute one-shot in the hospital? Absolutely world class filmmaking. So what if Russian Ark was a whole one take movie? No one got shotgunned through a window!

Hard Boiled is perhaps the most accessible entryway to Hong Kong action cinema, and not just because of its influence on world cinema. It's a fun romp with plenty of stakes and likeable characters who do cool things and easy to hate villains who do cool things as well. John Woo does sometimes get a rap for being one-noted, but when that note is so damn good, why bother changing it?