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John Woo’s Hong Kong cop-thriller extravaganza from 1992 is now on rerelease; it is pure outrageous mayhem in which Woo showed that he was a pioneering maestro of the PAE – Pointless Action Explosion – as well as the Mexican-standoff set piece, in which a pair of sweaty, homicidal guys statically point guns in each other’s faces, mutually hypnotised by the sudden stalemate, a kind of Zen duplication/opposition of killer and victim.
Hard Boiled irresistibly combined two of the most compellingly beautiful men in Hong Kong cinema: Tony Leung and Chow Yun-fat. As Inspector “Tequila” Yuen, Chow became legendary in this film for the scenes in which he has to carry around an adorable baby during the final, entirely bizarre shootout in a hospital. He and his girlfriend-slash-police-officer Teresa Chang (Teresa Mo) have previously had to get all the newborns out of the maternity unit, having daintily put cotton buds in their ears so the poor little mites weren’t upset by the deafening gunfire. This scene appears to have mutated from a previous script draft about a baby-poisoning wacko, a gruesome idea that was thankfully junked in favour of this inspired image, which made Chow relatable as nothing else could.
Yuen is a tough cop who in his spare time plays clarinet in a jazz club, and wears floaty, loose-fitting white shirts of the sort often modelled by Andrew Ridgeley. Working behind the club’s bar is Woo (played by John Woo himself, in cameo), a grizzled retired officer who gives him fatherly advice. When Yuen’s partner is killed in the course of the opening gobsmacking shootout in a teashop, Yuen’s determination to catch the bad guys is redoubled.
These include ageing mobster Uncle Hoi (Kwan Hoi-san) who finds himself in the middle of a growing turf war with triad chief Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong), a dead-eyed villain who wants to recruit one of Hoi’s men: super-stylish, devil-may-care Triad assassin Alan played by Tony Leung. But Alan is working undercover for the police, whose chief he has a testy and funny argument with about his payment. He is demanding a house in Guam with a walled garden; as it is, he also owns a huge yacht which we see him soulfully taking out on the water, to the film’s jazzy soundtrack. Not a very discreet luxury status symbol for an undercover cop, surely?
The loathsome Johnny Wong is importing vast amounts of arms from the Chinese mainland for his attempt to rule over Hong Kong and he has a devilishly clever idea about where to keep these hidden. Wong is the real baddie here; even a leathery killer called Mad Dog (Philip Kwok) turns out to have an unexpected inner core of decency. The stunts are wildly impressive, especially the motorbike riders who sail through the air in a ball of flame, and the gunplay is unique, although I have never found the term “balletic” quite right for something so brutal and quick. It is all so bizarre that you have to enjoy it and it makes those of us of a certain generation nostalgic for watching VHS rental tapes on a Friday night.
