What came before Hard Boiled?
Hong Kong director John Woo had been banging out films since the mid 1970’s sometimes a couple in a year which would continue into the 1980’s. But reputationally things really started to change for him in 1986 when his film ‘A Better Tomorrow’ was released starring his regular favourite actor Chow Yun-Fat. A gangster vs police officer (a staple for many of his films) was an actioner that drew a lot of attention and box office success in his home country. A sequel quickly followed within a year followed by the hugely regarded The Killer that drew international eyes to his work and then came ‘Bullet in the Head’. But it was his 1992 film Hard Boiled that was the culmination and perfection of his outrageous action set pieces that combined many of his trademarks notably slo-mo, a gun in each hand Mexican stand offs, religious imagery(usually involving doves) and frenetic and unrelenting shootout with massive body counts.
The Hard Boiled story
The films saw Chow Yun-Fat (City on Fire) as Tequila, a gung-ho cop working to bring down Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong –‘Infernal Affairs’), the villainous triad boss who maintains a stranglehold on Hong Kong’s illegal gun trade. Johnny attempts to recruit Ah-Long (Tony Leung – ‘Bullet in the Head’), an assassin from a rival syndicate, just as the insubordinate Tequila gets taken off the case. Taking justice into his own hands, Tequila tracks Ah-Long down and uncovers an intricate web of deception that threatens to boil over into all-out war.
What it was going to be…
The idea for the film had originally been intended as a kind of Hong Kong Dirty Harry seceded into the final script that like many of his previous films, notably The Killer, seen opposing sides team up for the greater good. A very early draft of the film had seen it influenced by the true story of a baby killer in Tokyo but it was far too dark albeit one of the films many astonishing action set pieces sees all guns ablaze with Chow Yun Fat cradling a baby as he engages in an explosive shoot out in a hospital’s maternity ward. Yes, the film is that insane.
The outrageous action…
Hard Boiled combined an elaborate narrative with near operatic gun fights that he and his stunt team had conjured up influenced by a number of factors. In one instance it was from a location recce his team had carried out at a tea house with a long stairway and bannister that was the inspiration for Yung-Fat zipping down it guns blasting in both hands. The location was marked for demolition but after the crew had finished filming there they had pretty much done the job anyway.
The set pieces were like nothing seen before and certainly not by Hollywood even by Sam Peckinpah standards. The set pieces are both exhilarating and outrageous and the body count is through the roof making Hard Boiled one of the best action films ever made and setting the standard for all that followed.
This new release on limited edition 4K UHD & Blu-ray is a treat for fans with a huge selection of bonus features that includes:
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Priscilla Page and archival writing and an interview with John Woo by Stéphane Moïssakis
• Six postcard-sized art cards
DISC ONE – FEATURE AND EXTRAS (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)
• 4K Ultra HD (2160p) Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Original lossless Cantonese mono and Dolby Atmos audio, and English mono audio
• Optional newly translated English subtitles for the Cantonese soundtracks and optional English for the deaf and hard of hearing subtitles for the English soundtrack
• Brand new audio commentary with director John Woo and film journalist Drew Taylor
• Brand new audio commentary with film historian Frank Djeng
• Archival audio commentary with John Woo and producer Terence Chang
• Archival audio commentary with John Woo, Terence Chang, film critic Dave Kehr and filmmaker Roger Avary
• Deleted and extended scenes
• Original trailers
• Image gallery
DISC TWO – EXTRAS (BLU-RAY)
• Violent Night, a brand new interview with John Woo
• Boiling Over, a brand new interview with actor Anthony Wong
• No Room for Failure, a brand new interview with Terence Chang
• Hard To Resist, a brand new interview with screenwriter Gordon Chan
• Boiled to Perfection, a brand new interview with screenwriter Chan Hing-Ka
• Body Count Blues, a brand new interview with composer Michael Gibbs
• Hong Kong Confidential: Inside Hard Boiled, a brand new interview with author and Hong Kong cinema expert Grady Hendrix
• Gun-Fu Fever, a brand new interview with author Leon Hunt
• Chewing the Fat, a brand new interview with academic Lin Feng
• American Cinematheque 2025 Q&A with John Woo
• The Test of Time, an archival documentary featuring interviews with John Woo, Terence Chang, editor David Wu and actor/stunt coordinator Philip Kwok
• Archival interviews with actors Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung
LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Priscilla Page and archival writing and an interview with John Woo by Stéphane Moïssakis
• Six postcard-sized artcards
DISC ONE – FEATURE AND EXTRAS
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Original lossless Cantonese mono and Dolby Atmos audio, and English mono audio
• Optional newly translated English subtitles for the Cantonese soundtracks and optional English for the deaf and hard of hearing subtitles for the English soundtrack
• Brand new audio commentary with director John Woo and film journalist Drew Taylor
• Brand new audio commentary with film historian Frank Djeng
• Archival audio commentary with John Woo and producer Terence Chang
• Archival audio commentary with John Woo, Terence Chang, film critic Dave Kehr and filmmaker Roger Avary
• Deleted and extended scenes
• Original trailers
• Image gallery
DISC TWO – EXTRAS
• Violent Night, a brand new interview with John Woo
• Boiling Over, a brand new interview with actor Anthony Wong
• No Room for Failure, a brand new interview with Terence Chang
• Hard To Resist, a brand new interview with screenwriter Gordon Chan
• Boiled to Perfection, a brand new interview with screenwriter Chan Hing-Ka
• Body Count Blues, a brand new interview with composer Michael Gibbs
• Hong Kong Confidential: Inside Hard Boiled, a brand new interview with author and Hong Kong cinema expert Grady Hendrix
• Gun-Fu Fever, a brand new interview with author Leon Hunt
• Chewing the Fat, a brand new interview with academic Lin Feng
• American Cinematheque 2025 Q&A with John Woo
• The Test of Time, an archival documentary featuring interviews with John Woo, Terence Chang, editor David Wu and actor/stunt coordinator Philip Kwok
• Archival interviews with actors Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung
Pretty much everything here is an indulgent treat making the discs an essential addition to any collection for fans of the genre.
Hard Boiled became and remains one of the defining films of the genre putting Hollywood’s actioners to shame so it’s little wonder that after this those LaLa land producers came calling making this Woo’s Hard Boiled his last Hong Kong film for over ten years. And whilst his first Hollywood film was ‘Broken Arrow starring a career rejuvenated John Travolta after Pulp Fiction after which the director would then go on to make his best film for the West with ‘Face off’. After that things tailed off with the Mission Impossible II often seen as the weakest in the series and his films thereon became less and less impressive before finally seeing him return to Hong Kong.
Hard Boiled remains a career high for John Woo and rightly so and is as viscerally exciting now as it was back in 1992
related feature : The most influential action films in each decade
related feature : Why The Raid 2 is actually the Raid 1! – Director Gareth Evans explains why
Here’s the trailer…..
The post Hard Boiled – 4K UHD & Blu-Ray limited edition appeared first on Any Good Films.
from Any Good Films https://ift.tt/NiVTndo
