Hard Boiled (DVD, 2007, 2-Disc Ultimate Edition)

HARD BOILED is the last movie directed by John Woo in Hong-Kong, his native country. And the movie is a dazzling testament of this director who did more for the recognition of the cinema of Asia than Akira Kurosawa, Satiajit Ray and Kenji Mizoguchi together. Like these masters, John Woo is a writer-director, like these masters, John Woo explores the particular moral codes of his people in his films but unlike these masters, he specialized in a genre that is usually not the cup of tea of the intelligentsia : the action movie.

The Cinema of John Woo is the cinema of the last frontier. John Woo's movies are modern westerns without deserts or glorious landscapes, his movies are claustrophobic : there are more guns, more bad guys, more policemen stuck in Woo's saloons than in the whole movie production of John Ford and Howard Hawks. And when all these guys begin to shoot, John Wayne or Gary Cooper wouldn't have had the slightest chance against them. Because the John Woo hero, in order to survive, needs more than a star on his chest or God's benediction. He must cross the frontier.

He must cross a frontier, Law, Honor, Self-respect, Friendship, make your choice. The character of Allan, played by a great Tony Leung, is the perfect example of the impersonation of a John Woo hero ; he's working for the Hong-Kong police, he's an insider and should follow the moral codes, written or not, of his employer. But, in order to survive, he will have to kill in cold blood his aging boss. He has crossed the frontier but in the same time saved his own life. For the time being.

The Criterion DVD is superb with a handful of trailers of John Woo's movies, commentaries and other bonus features. A must.

If this had been made today, I am sure John Woo would have changed many things and the way he did them. However, that being said, what director wouldn't? We've seen Woo evolve and develop to films like HARD TARGET and THE REPLACMENT KILLERS, but this is his seminal hit. At a younger age, I avoided this flick because I couldn't get into the mind set, at that time I only watched traditional chop sockey films. Now, years later, I can appreciate Woo's iconography, symbolism and true wit. The last action sequence, with an unlikely ending, is still one of the best choreographed sequences of it's kind. Not his most complete work, (story holes a mile wide) but definitely recommended.