Hard Boiled
While Inspectors 'Tequila' Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat, "Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger") and Benny Mak (Bowie Lam) surveil gun smugglers in a Hong Kong teahouse, a shootout erupts with a rival gang and the two cops become engaged in a firefight. The criminals are taken out, but so is Tequila's partner, and, he will later learn, an undercover cop. Superintendent Pang (Philip Chan, a former HK police inspector) takes Tequila off the case, but this determined cop is "Hard Boiled."
Laura's Review: A
After being featured in a traveling retrospective last year, Shout! is bringing back three 4K restorations of John Woo's Hong Kong action classics to theaters in 2026. First up from 1992 is the absolutely bonkers "Hard Boiled," Woo's last Hong Kong production before he made the jump to Hollywood (1986's "A Better Tomorrow" and 1989's "The Killer" follow in March and April). Woo's trademarks are all here from double handed gun play to fluttering birds to the Christian concept of self sacrifice, all amidst meticulously choreographed mayhem.
Woo ("Bullet in the Head," "Face/Off") and his cowriter Barry Wong place their hard boiled cop into a landscape where a seeming criminal may be undercover, cloaking Hong Kong inspectors in guilt when they inadvertently take out one of their own with friendly fire. As Tequila tries to figure out just who keeps sending his girlfriend Teresa Chang (Teresa Mo) large bouquets of white roses at their station, we'll witness a sleek assassin arrive in the city in a red sports car, saunter into library wearing Ray Bans, and assassinate a rival with a gun conveniently left in a hollowed out book, one which Tequila will later deduce is in the stacks from its imprint at the bloody crime scene.
The assassin, Alan (Tony Leung, "In the Mood for Love"), goes to see the Triad boss, Uncle Hoi (Kwan Hoi Shan), who was being double crossed by his recent kill and encourages the older man to retire to a nice life in Hawaii, but Hoi rejects a life of ease to support his troops at home. Meanwhile, Hoi's rival Triad boss Johnny Wong (Anthony Wng, "Infernal Affairs"), impressed by Alan, invites him to come along on a raid on Hoi's warehouse where he invites the man to either shoot Hoi or kill him instead. Unbeknownst to all, Tequila, who has been decoding the song lyrics in Teresa's rose bouquets, is hiding in the rafters when everything goes down. Hoi is astonished to find that it will be Alan who betrays him, yet state this is how he expected to die, inviting the man to shoot him. One incredibly balletic battle with an oversized body count later, Tequila finds himself in a Mexican standoff with Alan, who will give him a knowing grin, lower his weapon and walk away.
Eventually Woo reveals just who all the informants and undercover cops are, leading to a powerful if dangerous partnership to take down Johnny Wong. But Wong, who is using the basement of a local hospital to store his illegal arms, isn't about to go down easily, taking staff and patients hostage in an explosive climax where Woo juggles violent action with hilarity as Alan and Tequila slide out of morgue drawers firing away or Teresa and Tequila team up to rescue dozens of newborns in the maternity ward, stuffing their ears with cotton balls to 'protect' them from the ear splitting gunfire and massive explosions. One may never forget the sight of Chow Yun-Fat taking out half a dozen combatants with a gun in one hand and the baby he dubs 'Saliva Sammy' cradled in the other.
Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung are the underdog and top dog of cool here, one scrappy, the other sleek. The large ensemble consists of distinct characters as well, Hoi an 'honorable' criminal, Wng his immoral counterpart, an important element in the climax when his chief enforcer, Mad Dog (Cheung Jue Luh, "Tomorrow Never Dies") objects to his indiscriminate killing of innocents. Chan takes the cliched role of a superintendent trying to rein in a rebellious cop and layers it with the serious business of protecting those his hot head might mow down at any moment. Tung Wai is another slippery element as Foxy and watch for Woo himself as the bartender in the club where Tequila plays jazz clarinet.
"Hard Boiled" is simply one of the greatest action films in cinema history with its complex tale of loyalties and betrayals and Woo's elaborate split second staging of incredible stunts.
Robin's Review: B+
Back in the 1990s, director John Woo helped create an entire genre: the Hong Kong cop/gangster films. His trademark – movies about good guy/bad guy mayhem and lots of bullets – are the precursor and maybe the influence for the ongoing John Wick franchise. Three of his HK gangster flics are being issued in a restored 4K transfer, leading off with “Hard Boiled (1992).”
When we talk about action director John Woo movies, what we mean are his late 80s and 90s cop movies AND those with Chow Yun-Fat – the Hong Kong equivalent of the Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro collaborations. With “Hard Boiled,” Woo has his macho star as a hard-boiled (of course) cop, Tequila, pulled into an undercover operation with deep cover agent Alan (Tony Leung) to bust up an enormous illegal arms operation.
That is the shell of the story by Woo and company. But, the real reason we are here is for the shootouts! And, boy, do we get shootouts here. Our intrepid heroes must face a phalanx of Triad bad guys and everybody, and I mean everybody, has guns – lots of guns. And lots of guns means even more bullets and Woo could have staged the Normandy landing with all the munitions that are unloaded on the bad guys.
If you have seen any of the John Wick movies, you see an impressive amount of firepower on display. But, action director Woo make the Keanu Reaves franchise runners seem like pikers when it comes to the amount of ammunition expended.
Back in the HK actioner heydays, guns never run out of bullets, especially for our heroes. The action, shootouts and mayhem – no one seems worried about the civilian population - is almost constant from start to finish. There is one major – and perversely fun – exception: the bad guys attack a hospital and it is up to Tequila and Alan to save the babies in the maternity ward – this, alone, is worth the price of admission.
The stars have good chemistry with the tongue in cheek humor and the buddy bromance between the titular cops. At over two hours runtime, there is virtually no letup with the back to back action sequences and shootouts, It makes me wonder if Woos actioners expend more shots per minute than the Wick flics, I am sure someone, somewhere has made those calculations.
It is pleasure to see the seminal works of John Woo brought back and restored in awesome 4K release. I look forward to more.
John Woo's "Hard Boiled" is being released in theaters on 1/25, 1/26 and 1/28 by Shout!.
