User:Andrzejbanas/Hardboiled

Hard Boiled is a 1992 Hong Kong action film directed by John Woo. It stars Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Alan an undercover cop, and Anthony Wong as Johnny Wong, a leader of criminal Triads. The film features Tequila whose partner is killed in a tea house gunfight with a small army of gangsters. One of the mob's high-ranking assassins is Alan is an undercover cop who must team up with Tequila for their common pursuit of putting Johnny Wong's crime syndicate away. The film leads up to a climax in a hospital, where the two must rescue newborn babies from the maternity ward while fighting off dozens of mob soldiers.

Hard Boiled was John Woo's last Hong Kong film. After making films that featured gansters in the lead role, Woo wanted to make a Dirty Harry styled film to glamorize the police force. After the death of screenwriter Barry Wong, the script of the film went through many changes while still filming. New characters such as Mad Dog and Mr.Woo were introduced and an original idea of a baby poisoning psychopath were cut from the script.

The film was released in Hong Kong in 1992 to generally positive audience reception, but it was not as popular as Woo's previous action films such as A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. Reception to western critics was much more positive with critics proclaiming it's action scenes to be some of the best ever filmed. In 2007, a video game sequel to the game was released which is in the process of being made into a film version.

Plot
In a tea house in Hong Kong, Officer "Tequila" Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat) and his partner Benny (Bowie Lam), attempt to arrest a group of gun smugglers during a deal. After an ambush from another gang member, a fierce gun battle breaks out. The gangsters are defeated but with several police officers badly wounded, and Benny is killed. Tequila decides to get revenge on the gangster who ambushed them which earns Tequila the wrath of his Officer Superintendent Pang (Philip Chan), who orders Tequila off the case. Elsewhere, undercover cop Alan (Tony Leung) works for triad boss "Uncle" Hoi (Kwan Hoi-Shan). Alan had murdered a fellow member of Hoi's gang, who had been working for another triad lead by Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong). Wong is impressed by Alan's skill and attempts to recruit him. Alan reluctantly turns against Hoi when Wong conducts a raid on Hoi's arsenal at a warehouse. At the warehouse, Wong's men kill Hoi's workers and destroy his stock. When Hoi arrives, Wong demands Alan kill Hoi. Alan kills Hoi and his gang members. Suddenly, smoke grenades explode and Tequila appears from the ceiling. Alan covers Wong's escape as Tequila fights and kills most of the gangsters. Tequila finds himself confronting Alan face to face in the smoke. Tequila tries to shoot Alan, but finds he is out of bullets. Alan slowly lowers his gun and walks away.

At the police station, Tequila is to find out that Alan is an undercover cop working for Pang. Tequila tracks Alan down to his boat on the docks to try to make sense of the situation but the two are ambushed by the remnants of Hoi's gang. They manage to kill their attackers just before Wong arrives, allowing Alan to keep his cover. Wong realizes that one of his gangsters named Foxy (Tung Wei), is an informant for the police. Foxy is beaten by Mad Dog (Philip Kwok) and tells Alan to kill him. Alan slips a cigarette lighter into Foxy's pocket, where he shoots him, saving his life. Foxy finds Tequila at a jazz bar and informs him that Wong's armory is in the nearby Maple Group Hospital. As Tequila takes Foxy to the hospital, Wong finds out Foxy is alive and sends Alan to kill Foxy. Wong also sends Mad Dog separately to cover Alan. At the hospital, Alan confronts Tequila, demanding to know the whereabouts of Wong's arsenal. While Alan and Tequila are distracted, Foxy is killed by Mad Dog.

Alan and Tequila discover a hidden entryway in the hospital morgue finding Wong's arsenal. They are confronted by Mad Dog who engages them. Wong arrives at the hospital down and takes all the patients, police officers and staff hostage. After fighting their way to the main lobby, Alan and Tequila liberate the kidnapped patients and police officers. Pang evacuates the lobby while Chang goes to the maternity ward to organize evacuating the babies. Alan and Tequila continue fighting gangsters until finding Mad Dog. While Tequila goes to assist Chang with the babies, Alan and Mad Dog find themselves in a standoff with a group of patients caught in the middle. Wong appears and begins shooting the patients. An enraged Mad Dog shoots Wong in the torso. Wong shoots and killsMad Dog while Alan escapes. Tequila finds the last baby in the maternity unit and carries it to safety while fighting off the last of the gangsters. Alan and Tequila meet up again and are confronted by Johnny Wong, who has programmed bombs to blow up the building. Tequila escapes the hospital with the last baby. Wong suddenly appears holding Alan at gunpoint. After humiliating Tequila, Alan grabs Wong's gun. In a struggle, shoots himself through the stomach giving Tequila enough time to shoot Wong dead. Later at the police station, Pang and Tequila burn Alan's police file. Alan is then shown sails away from Hong Kong.

Cast

 * Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen: A clarinet-playing police officer whose partner is killed in a restaurant gunfight with a small army of gangsters. Chow had previously worked with director John Woo on several of his previous films, including A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Once a Thief.
 * Tony Leung as Alan: Alan is an undercover cop. Alan's making of origami cranes was influenced by Woo's daughter who was made them. Alan's character is often shown as very alone. Woo stated that this was influenced by Alain Delon's character in the French crime film Le Samourai. Leung had previously worked with Woo on his film Bullet in the Head.
 * Teresa Mo as Teresa Chang: A fellow police officer who is the girlfriend Inspector "Tequila" Yuen. Chang helps decode the secret code songs that are sent to the police office by Alan.
 * Philip Chan as Supt. Pang : Prior to the film, Philp Chan was an police officer for about fifteen years. Philip Chan felt that certain scenes in the film were very familiar as they were similar to things had to do with real cops in job.
 * Philip Kwok as Mad Dog: Mad Dog is a gangster working for Johnny Wong. Mad Dog is killed by Johnny Wong after an argument about killing innocent civilians in the hospital.
 * Anthony Wong Chau-Sang as Johnny Wong: Wong is the head of a triad who encourages Alan to kill Mr.Hoi. Wong's triad has a large amount of guns hidden in the basement of a hospital.
 * Bowie Lam as Benny: An undercover office who is killed in the tea house shoot out.
 * Bobby Au-Yeung as Lionheart: An assistant to Inspector "Tequila" Yuen.
 * Kwan Hoi-Shan as Mr. Hoi: A triad boss who is the head of the gang Alan is investigating. Mr. Hoi is killed in a warehouse shoot out.
 * Tung Wei as Foxy: An undercover cop beaten up by Mad Dog. Foxy is spared by Alan and lives to tell information to give Tequila from Alan. Foxy is later killed by Mad Dog at a hospital.
 * John Woo as Mr.Woo: Mr.Woo is the bartender at the Jazz bar who gives advice to Inspector "Tequila" Yuen.

Development
The film was made in 1990. After creating films which focused on the lives of gangsters, director John Woo wanted to make a film that glorified the police instead. Woo admired the Clint Eastwood's and Steve McQueen's characters from Dirty Harry and Bullitt respectively and wanted to make his own Hong Kong styled Dirty Harry police detective film. Creating this character was influenced by an interview Woo did with a strong willed and tough member of the police force who was also an avid drummer. This led to Woo having Tequila's character be a musician as well as a cop.

Before making the film, Woo told his actors that he wasn't intending on making a stylish film, but a more edgy thriller. The role of Teresa Chang was originally going to go for Michelle Yeoh who had a long relationship with Terence Chang. After casting Teresa Mo, the character of Teresa Chang was greatly re-written. After deciding against baby killer themed script, the production stopped for around a month to create a new story for the film.

The film's initial story was about Tony Leung's character being a psychopath who would poison baby food. When the film was still at this theme, Terence Chang was trying to make connections in the United States to have Woo make films in the United States. During this promotional tour, Chang found people uninterested and disgusted about the film's plot of babies being poisoned. This lead them to hiring a new writer Barry Wong to write a new story about Tony Leung's character being an undercover police officer. After writing the first part of a treatment, Wong went to trip where he died leaving the script unfinished.

Filming
Hard Boiled took 123 day to shoot. Although Woo told his cast this film would be more gritty and not stylish as his previous films, Hard Boiled became more stylish while being filmed. The tea house sequence in film was shot before the script was written. The crew found that the tea house was going to be torn down and decided to film a scene there after Woo saw the staircase and thought about a character shooting gun smugglers while sliding down the stair case. The tea house sequence was shot around a week's time and was choreographed by Woo and Philip Kwok. It was shot with interruptions from many local triads in the area asking for protection money and residents complaining about the noise.

The script of the film went through several changes during filming. Due to the length the of film, scenes from a side-story involving the relationship between the character Tequila and Teresa Chang were cut. Anoter cut scene included Tequila playing clarinet over Benny's grave. With these cut, Chow Yun-Fat felt his character wasn't very deep in comparison to Leung's character of Alan. To develop his character more, Chow asked John Woo to insert a mentor character in the film that Woo would play the role of. Chow felt that having Woo in this role would make Woo not cut out these scenes. Philip Kwok's role of Mad Dog was not in the script and was created on the set. Kwok first worked with Woo on his film Once a Thief and was asked to return to work on Hard Boiled. After reading the script Woo felt that the Johnny Wong character wasn't a strong enough physical threat. After seeing Kwok do several of the stunts during the scenes in the film Woo created the character of Mad Dog for him.

The scenes shot at the Hospital maternity ward and the warehouse were shot at a new studio called "The Coca-Cola Factory" which was formerly a Coke bottling plant. The hospital scenes took 40 days to shoot. The hospital segment's location was chosen as they wanted to have an untypical location where gangs would hide their guns. While filming in the hospital, the windows were covered with blast shields to give the appearance of night time which allowed the crew to film at any time during the day. Members of the cast and crew stayed in the hospital for days often losing track of the time of day. After long hours of filming in the hospital, the crew became exhausted. This led to having the last scene be one long five minute scene of action to shorten the time needed to film. To complete this, during the scene when two characters go into an elevator to talk for twenty seconds, the crew changes the scene entirely and sets up the explosions for the scene to continue seamlessly. An accident occurred while filming the hospital sequence. Real glass was used and pieces of it flew toward Tony Leung and got into his eyes. Leung was sent to the hospital and after a week's rest, he returned to the set. Woo changed the ending of Hard Boiled after many members of the crew of the film felt that Leung's character should survive at the film's end.

Post-production
Woo is a fan of jazz music and wanted to use jazz music in his film. The original score for the film was originally a score described as "very haunting music" by Bey Logan. This score could not used as they could not get the rights to the music. Although the music is not played during the film, the songs "Hello" by Lionel Richie and "Mona Lisa" are used as coded messages between Alan and the police department. All the character's in Hard Boiled have their voices dubbed by their own actors in order to save money. Woo stated this was convenient as you didn't have to worry about setting up boom mics and other sound elements.

Release
On Hard Boiled's release in Hong Kong the film was a hit but was not as strong in the box office as Woo's previous action films A Better Tomorrow or The Killer. The North American premiere of Hardboiled was September 1992 at the Toronto International Film Festival. At the premiere the audience response was very positive with people stomping their feet at yelling at the screen. These scenes really surprised producer Terence Change who didn't expect such a positive reaction.

Reception
Hard Boiled was received well by English critics on its original release. The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 94% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 31. Initial reception was positive, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times found it difficult to follow both the action scenes and the subtitles at the same time, but stated that "Mr. Woo does, in fact, seem to be a very brisk, talented director with a gift for the flashy effect and the bizarre confrontation". A review in The Los Angeles Times stated that "With Hard Boiled, John Woo shows himself to be the best director of contemporary action films anywhere".

Later reception of the film has also been positive. Film scholar Andy Klein wrote that the film is "almost a distillation of [Woo's] post-1986 work. Even if the plot is full of holes, and the emotional tug isn't quite as strong as in The Killer, the action sequences (nearly the whole movie) are among the greatest ever filmed". Mark Salisbury of Empire Magazine gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "Infinitely more exciting than a dozen Die Hards, action cinema doesn't come any better than this.". Salisbury compared Hard Boiled to Woo's American films, stating that his Hong Kong film are "not as slick as his later films, [Hard Boiled is] more inventive and stylised and [has] great early performances from Fat and Leung". Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine gave the film the highest rating of four stars proclaiming it to be one of Woo's best films. Empire also ranked the character of Tequila as 33rd in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.

Home media
A Region 1 DVD of Hard Boiled was released by The Criterion Collection on July 10, 1998. A second Region 1 release of the film was from Fox Lorber who released the film on it's own and as a double feature with The Killer on DVD on October 3, 2000. The most recent Region 1 release of Hard Boiled was from Dragon Dynasty who released a two disc DVD of the film on July 24, 2007.

In 2007, Midway Games released the game Stranglehold. The game's story and storyboards were made in collaboration with John Woo. The game features the character Tequila from Hard Boiled who is traveling the globe in search of his kidnapped daughter. John Woo's production company Lion Rock Entertainment is developing a film version of the game which will be written by Jeremy Passmore and Andre Fabrizio.