Rating: 
Summary: Unbelievable but amazing!
Review: What can you say about a gun fight that shoots up a hospital with babies all over the place? Just a premise that seems right up there with other adult fairy tales.Chow Yun Fat gives another fine interpretation - this time of a cop beleaguered by his boss, and breaking up with his girlfriend. (Or are they?) There are undercover agents and many twists and turns to keep you guessing and on your toes with the story. But in the end, it is the amazing action that will have you sitting with your mouth open saying how did they do that?! As a older woman who has just discovered Hongkong films, this is one of my favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: El mejor film de acción de todos los tiempos
Review: John Woo hizo con Hard-Boiled, un film redondo. Con un argumento llano y simplón, construyó un perfecto espectáculo sin pretensiones, cuya emoción se sostiene en tres grandes momentos: en una cafetería, un almacén y un hospital. Woo, aquí rompió con todo lo ofrecido anteriormente. En ningún momento se plantea la bondad dal mafioso, ni su posibilidad de redención. Es más; se nos presenta la figura del super policía. Esto otorga una airecillo fascistoide, mas que nada autoparódico, al film de marras. En fin, música vibrante, violencia lírica, esquematización de personajes, actuaciones fluidas...Tan alejada de la profunda A better Tomorrow; pero tan bella en su aspecto técnico. Simplemente estamos hablando de la obra maestra del cine de acción. ¿Haber quien logra superarla?
Rating:
Summary: The most action in a movie award goes to...
Review: Let me start off by saying that my two favorite action movies are The Killer and Hard Boiled. Each movie is action packed and are both directed by John Woo. John Woo is one of the greatest directors of all time. He has made three of my favorite action movies, the two I mentioned above and Face/Off(NOT A HOCKEY MOVIE!!!). There is something about those two Hong Kong masterpieces that the American Face/Off just doesn't have. There is a certain kind of style and flare that is aparrent in both The Killer and Hard Boiled that Face/Off just couldn't acheive, although it is an amazing action movie nonetheless. As for which is better, The Killer or Hard Boiled, I can't say. They are both amazing in their own ways. Well about Hard Boiled, it has the most action ever to be seen in one movie. That is not exactly why it is one of my favorite action movies though. The amount of action in a movie does not exactly tell you how good the movie is because of a couple reasons. The first reason is that the action may not be quality action. In this case though it definitely is quality action. Next, their maybe a lot of action, but the story may be so horrible that the film may be ruined by it. However in Hard Boiled the story is good enough to not ruin the movie. The story is not amazing or anything, but it is okay enough and involves a lot of scenes that call for lots of action which makes it watchable. The action scenes are the best part and no one does a good action scene like John Woo. A good example of John Woo's directing and a story that makes the movie almost unwatchable is M:I-2. The problem with the story in that movie was that it didn't involve enough action, but the reason the movie was saved was John Woo made every non-action scene seem more interesting than it actually was. In that movie you can clearly see his directing talents... he even turned a scene where two people were originaly going to be talking into a car chase scene! In M:I-2 though you only see his talents yearning for some action where his true talents are unleashed. This movie is the most action packed movie ever, so John Woo's talents are fully unleashed. There is almost no stunt that cannot be found in Hard Boiled and almost no scene that doesn't involve action. Hard Boiled may very well be the best action movie ever made and is definitely in the top two alongside The Killer, another John Woo acion extraveganza. I must warn people out there looking to buy this movie, if you are buying a VHS of this stay away from the subtitled, the quality of the video is much worse than the dubbed. Plus I personally would rather hear people talking than have to read what they are saying. Overall though if you have a DVD player and do not own The Killer or Hard Boiled I suggest getting the two disc John Woo collection featuring those two movies, since they are, in my opinion, the two best action movies ever made.
Rating:
Summary: U don't see,U don't know
Review: It's really hard to review this movie as just "word".But I can say this "You should not say anything about CHOW YUN-FAT and JOHN WOO without this movie."
Rating:
Summary: Hard Boiled
Review: You know what I enjoy doing? I like to take friend, particularly one whose never seen a John Woo movie (besides the obvious M:I2 or Face/Off) and show them Hard Boiled. I've seen this flick quite a few times, thus showing it to a lot of friends. It changed every one of them. HB sets the standard for any action movie out there. I asked one of my changed friends about the quality of "Kiss Of The Dragon." "It was good," he said. "But it wasn't Hard Boiled good." That's usually the response I get now, and I have to explain to any confused parties that, no, he wasn't talking about his breakfast. HB's plot is...well, good, considering all one should be asking for is neato gunplay. The acting is very good; the leads both make their characters the coolest action stars to grace a shoot-em-up. John Woo's directing is, to say the least, astounding. This guy (along with Tony Leung) can make strolling through a library look stylish and slick (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it). The gunfights are, as expected, literally jaw dropping. You're left stunned minutes after each fight is over. Of course these scenes would be nothing without awesome heroes to make them fun. Chow Yun-Fat is awesome as always, needless to say. Leung is incredible and knows how to handle a gun perfectly. Anyway, this film sets the standard for actioners everywhere, and is a must for any DVD collection. And show it to a couple friends. It's fun to watch their reactions.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best of the Chow Yun-Fat movies ever!
Review: This DVD/ VHS Tape has very good acting and some of the best fight seens ever. Compared to the Better Tommorow set (123), The movie beats better tommorow by far. With good explanig of the plot, and wonderful acting, and action seens this is definatley of Chow YUn-Fat's best movies
Rating:
Summary: Quintessential Woo and Chow Yun-Fat
Review: Hard Boiled is the movie where the master's of modern Hong Kong cinema put together THE best action movie outside US (and you could rightly say inside the US as well). It was this movie that finally got hollywood's full attention and brought the two over to the America. The production value is top notch and the DVD has a cornucopia of features. The action scenes are briskly paced from the start, and the opening scene with Chow Yun Fat going after the gun runner in the tea house is only topped by the incredible action sequence midway through the movie when Chow Yun Fat's character finally meets up with Tony Leung's under cover cop. I'm not a big fan of spoiling the scenes, suffice to say the powerful impact of them doesn't diminish with watching. Woo's choice of using jazz was criticized in Hong Kong, but I disagree, it really adds a great flavor to the movie. And there are no cheesy Hong Kong music cuts anywhere in the movie. It is also a bit ironic that many critics in Hong Kong saw the movie as too dark, which I can only say compared to what Bullet to the Head or The Killer. It just goes to show what critics know. Tony Leung's performance as an angst driven undercover cop would have gotten him an Oscar here in my humble opinion. It was a much better and more coherent part than Chow Yun Fat's similar character in City on Fire. The choices he has to make, who he ends up killing torment him and you can continue to argue over the choices he made. There is almost no 'right' choice. Some of the themes in this movie are of course similar throughout the genre and you can't help but laugh when the classic argument about cops and criminals is lifted from just about every Clint Eastwood movie. The ending is a bit over the top - but almost restrained compared to a Bullet to the Head. Otherwise a perfect collabaration, and having seen my share of Hong Kong movie's this is one of the few 5 stars I would give out.
Rating:
Summary: A Chinese shoot 'em up!
Review: This movie takes the "revenge your dead partner" to a whole new level! Set in Hong Kong Sgt. Inspector "Tequila" Yuen is the typical bad-ass cop that we all come to know in american pop culture. Like all other cop movies his partner is tragically killed in a gunfight and... well that kind of pisses him off! Without giving away too much, he must overcome a "by the book" superintendent, a powerful arms dealer, and a shady cop who has been working undercover for far too long. What ensues is however, is some of the most graphic violence ever portrayed on film!! i.e. The Climax of the movie. Not as spectacular as Crouching Tiger but much more real. Break out the popcorn and get ready for some hardhitting police drama as only Chow Yun-Fat and John Woo can deliver!!!
Rating:
Summary: John Woo Trilogy
Review: I watched A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard-Boiled in that order, and each one builds a momentum and quality that the next film tops. I definitely recommend watching these films in that sequence, as the intensity of stunning cinematography, action drama, and character additions deepens. A poster said that John Woo's dialogue is juvenile - I wonder whether he knows Cantonese or can even grasp the slang and nuances of the urban language of Hong Kong. A Cantonese speaker will probably testify that his scripts are quite savvy and smart. The pity is that Hong Kong slang, as in any foreign language (depending on what's foreign to you), is untranslatable. The timing of the jokes, retorts, and reflections is hard to faithfully translate without disrupting the meaning of the characters' words. Let's just say the English translation for the film is awful. The trade-off of reading a text or even watching a movie of a language different than your own is that a lot is butchered and obscured, demeaning the art piece's full glory. Well, John Woo himself said he doesn't know much about gangsters. He's merely using his characters - often chivalrous and struggling with their conscience - to express his philosophy of a lost world of traditional values where the believer of those values is destroyed in a heroic tragedy. It's disputable to say that his gangster characters are a parody or not; some yes, some no. The actors portray the gangsters I've come across quite well; the gangsters' grandiose, crude, and ruthless mannerisms and ethics sketch a strong parody of them. However, I don't think the characters of "Alan" (Ah-Long in Cantonese) or "Joe" in The Killer are intentional parodies. Gangstar action films sell, but a straightforward, didactic story about the loss of idealized code of honor and ethics probably won't. But a gangstar flick coupled with some mourning for the lack of forthrightness in a Social Darwinist world by some memorable cops and gangsters sells remarkably well. The main characters are tragic heroes who experience intense agony and strive for honor in a heartless environment. I'm a big John Woo fan, so can't get too objective. All I can say is - SEE IT!
Rating:
Summary: Dramaticly Juvenile Cinematic Masterpiece
Review: And I say that without any fear of hyperbole. In spite of the glowing reviews, Woo is in fact one of the worst directors of drama in history. His scripts and dialog are best described as juvenile, his "characters" are nonsensical parodies of bad soap-opera. Broken Arrow and Face/Off are as good as he'll ever get in terms of dialog and drama. But his ACTION masterpiece is Hard Boiled. As bad a dramatist as Woo is, he handles action like no one else. He is the master, and Hard Boiled is his masterpiece. The big problem with Hard Boiled is that people who haven't seen it think The Matrix is really good (it's actually a cheap copy). The Criterion DVD looked great and had enough extra stuff to justify the list price. But not more. Don't pay the exorbidant collector rate, just wait until it's reissued on Critereon. This is a movie you can pick up at any time. You can watch it in whole or in part over and over again. Every sequence is full of Kinetic (but NEVER gratuitous) camera work, lyrical editing, and over-the-top stunts. Every segment is a memorable moment. Watch it dubbed, so you don't miss any frames reading -- the subtitles are just as bad as the Australian acented voices.
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