- Format: PAL
- Language Cantonese Chinese
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Tartan
- DVD Release Date: 19 Mar 2001
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00005A3PE
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 23,528 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Released in 1992, Hard Boiled is John Woo's farewell to the kind of blood-spattered cinema of vengeance and redemption with which he had made his name as a director in Hong Kong during the late 1980s. The following year he was in Hollywood filming Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and an era had effectively ended. This might explain the elegiac feel Woo brings to his study of two men haunted by the violent consequences of their actions. Chow Yun Fat generates tremendous sullen energy in his portrayal of Tequila, a plain-clothes cop who not only loses his partner in a shoot-out with a gang of underground gunrunners but also discovers that he's unwittingly killed a fellow officer working undercover. Playing opposite him is Tony Leung as the enigmatic Tony, a young police officer who has secretly managed to penetrate the world of illegal arms-dealing in the guise of a cold-blooded gangland assassin. With rival gangs fighting over the weapons trade and Tequila gunning for Tony, unaware of his true identity, Hard Boiled has an unsurprisingly high body count, particularly when the various factions converge on a private hospital, reducing it by the movie's end to a smoking war zone, its corridors strewn with corpses.
John Woo's ability to exploit the comic-book profundities of the genre, endowing his set-piece action sequences with a uniquely emotional edge, comes through in the controlled use of slow motion, cut-away details and brooding freeze-frame studies of the central characters. The image of Chow Yun Fat cradling an abandoned baby against his chest while he blasts his way out of the hospital's maternity unit has an enduring sharpness to it. However, a sense of ending runs throughout the movie, as if Woo were acknowledging that, having done everything he could with the format, the time had come for him to move on. And perhaps it had. --Ken Hollings
Special Features
Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9
Chinese
Region 0
Dolby Digital Chinese
Dolby Digital
Interview With John Woo
Original Theatrical Trailers
Uncut Scene Comparisons
On Screen Article
Star And Director Filmographies
Stills Gallery
Scene Selection
Restored Version
English
DVD 9
Chinese
Region 0
Dolby Digital Chinese
Dolby Digital
Interview With John Woo
Original Theatrical Trailers
Uncut Scene Comparisons
On Screen Article
Star And Director Filmographies
Stills Gallery
Scene Selection
Restored Version
English
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Hard Boiled was John Woo's final Hong Kong film before he jumped ship and started making mediocre Hollywood films. Considering the fact that it was his last HK film, it's certainly a great leaving present.
Hard Boiled is one of the greatest action films I have ever had the pleasure of seeing - it just pips Woo's other masterpiece "The Killer" to the title of best HK Heroic Bloodshed movie. There is little to fault about this film - The Story is solid, if a bit formulaic while Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung make convincing leads and needless to say the action is stunning - it would be fair to say that alot of stuff gets blown up in this film and a lot of people get shot - the hospital finale is action film making at its very best.
Get Hard Boiled - it really is a 5* effort.
Hard Boiled is one of the greatest action films I have ever had the pleasure of seeing - it just pips Woo's other masterpiece "The Killer" to the title of best HK Heroic Bloodshed movie. There is little to fault about this film - The Story is solid, if a bit formulaic while Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung make convincing leads and needless to say the action is stunning - it would be fair to say that alot of stuff gets blown up in this film and a lot of people get shot - the hospital finale is action film making at its very best.
Get Hard Boiled - it really is a 5* effort.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
It does not matter whether one understands Cantonese or not to enjoy this movie. This movie is easily one of John Woo's & Chow Yun Fats best.
The story is about a hard working, hard-ass CID cop who wants to bring down a Triad gang. Chow Yun Fat gets close to an undercover cop, who is also working as an informer and on his last case. Anyway, the story flows fast due to explosive action scenes.
In typical Woo style there are plenty of slow-mo gun splurting dives. The gun battles are endless. And the protrayal of the ruthlessness of the triads is enough to scare one in the living room.
This flick is a classic and deserves a shelf space to be shared with the Godfather, Goodfellas, The Killer, etc.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
If you're fed up by the tame action films pumped out by hollywood, then you must check this film out. The action is amazing and at times way over the top and made me laugh at some points, its amazing how Tony can take a shotgun bullet to his back and still carry on shooting, running and even swimming. The body count is extremely high in this movie (especially in the arms depot and hospital scenes), not even innocent bystanders are safe. So if you're into action films involving guns you'd be crazy to miss this title.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hard Case
Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung deliver the goods in a staggeringly violent movie. The body count is incredible. Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2005 by Donald Thompson
The definitive John Woo film
Forget face off or that awful Mission Inpossible 2. This is John Woos finest film. As John Woo films are almost carbon copies of each other, this is the flick that has all the... Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2003 by J. Davison
WOO'S WOO ?
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... Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2003 by Daniel S.
John Woo's over-the-top action classic
'Hard Boiled' is a an action classic. The plot is pleasently on-the-edge, the characters deep and unsure, the action pleasingly over-the-top. Read more
Published on 27 Oct 2002 by G Griffiths
ANOTHER SHOOT-EM UP CLASSIC
Although "The killer" has to be my favourite John Woo film, this one comes a very close second. It also stars Chow Yun Fat playing an almost identical character, except that this... Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2002 by kaysixone
I hate to diss the release,...
I was really excited when I heard that "Hrad Boiled" was finally being released in an uncut widescreen version on DVD. Read more
Published on 30 April 2002
Superb film...okay DVD
Dont get me wrong I love this film (It would get 5 stars) but the DVD is missing one crucial thing, which it says it features. Foreign language with subtitles. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2002
the way it should be shown
this release is great its uncut some nice exstras just one weaknesss.
the picture quality is poor more like a vhs tape but below that even. Read more
the picture quality is poor more like a vhs tape but below that even. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2002
Classic Woo. Uncut. Undubbed. Widescreen.
Finally, Woo's masterpiece Hardboiled uncut, orig language and widescreen like it is meant to be seen. Forget all the Hollywood dreck Woo has been directing lately. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2001
Great action sequences!
This is a brilliant action movie from the action master John Woo. It contains non stop gun battles and, in my opinion, is Woo's best film apart from Face/Off. Read more
Published on 26 Nov 2000
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