Gunfights as choreographed dances. Violence as lyricized motion. Action as art. Director John Woo has elevated the film genre to a level that transcends notions of big explosions and feeble plot development. His intelligent noirlike filmmaking relies on the cinematic movement of bodies, machines, and, oh yes, bullets.
If you missed Woo's hyperkinetic Hong Kong crime opus Hard Boiled during its brief art-house run, fear not - Criterion/Voyager put the only uncut version of the film with English subtitles on laserdisc. A seminal work of the Hong Kong movie scene, Hard Boiled and Woo have inspired the likes of Quentin Tarantino and created a new style for a creatively corrupt Hollywood to copy.
In Hard Boiled, Woo injects a typical action-movie construct with unexpected characters and a serious dose of noir styling. Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat), a cynical supercop, seeks revenge against a Hong Kong Triad/underworld boss for the murder of his partner. But Yuen's adversary Tony (Tony Leung) isn't a depraved and vile creature; he's a charismatic, multidimensional person. Instead of one protagonist, Woo gives us two. He skewers our loyalties and forces us to choose allegiance to one character.
What really sets Hard Boiled apart is not the story, but how it plays on screen. When the bullets and bodies start to fly, the plot, characters, and dialog cease to have any importance. It's 99 percent pure - visual-overload cinema mainlined straight to your eyeballs.
With the exception of the irreparably scratched credits, Criterion offers a pristine letterboxed print of Woo's film. Highlights include Woo's shot-by-shot commentary on an audio/analog track and the original theatrical trailer.
Don't settle for the video version of Hard Boiled. Its miserable editing and dubbing put it alongside the worst Kung Fu or Godzilla movie ever made. Hard Boiled is a piece of cinematic sculpture - one that deserves to be seen exactly as its director intended.
Hard Boiled: US$124.95. The Criterion Collection of The Voyager Company: (800) 446 2001, +1 (914) 591 5500, fax +1 (914) 591 6481, e-mail 3sixty@voyagerco.com.
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Hong Kong Noir
