Hard Boiled (1992)

Is Hard Boiled the peak of pre-CGI-enhanced action cinema? When you sit down to watch it, or rewatch it after a gap of far too many years, it soon becomes hard to argue against that position. Considering how beloved it remains by action movie fans, I seriously considered not even writing a review. What can be said about Hard Boiled that hasn't been said already? Nothing, but I still want to add my own praise to the mass of positive words you can already read about it elsewhere.

Chow Yun-Fat plays 'Tequila', a good cop with a very good aim. Others say that he never wastes a bullet, but that claim may be tested when he is surrounded by more and more gun-toting criminals looking to push him right off the end of this mortal coil. The head villain is Johnny (Anthony Wong), but he's helped out by a deadly killer named Mad Dog (Phillip Kwok) and a young man (Tony Leung) who might be keeping a big secret that could compromise a lot of people.

With a screenplay by Barry Wong and Gordon Chan, Hard Boiled has everything you could expect from this kind of movie in this time period. There's our hero clashing with the Chief Superintendent (Philip Chan). There's some awkward comedy, and relationship tension between our hero and the woman he is involuntarily separated from (Teresa, played by Teresa Mo). And you have the moral fluidity of the heroes and villains, depending on what is at stake and who is caught up in the middle of the action. And there are guns. Of course. Lots and lots of guns.

The influence of John Woo, often referred to as the father of "bullet ballet", cannot be under-estimated, and Hard Boiled is a modern action movie source text that so many other moments of great cinema stem from. The two main stars are suitably bright, but they're also happy to share scenes with the actual main star of the show, all of the weaponry and firepower that Woo presents in a number of increasingly impressive and audacious set-pieces. 

Aside from Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung, both unable to be any cooler unless they were dipped in liquid nitrogen, it's a pleasant surprise to find Wong and Kwok able to make any kind of impression at all. The fact that they both manage to be as riveting as the leads, albeit in very different ways, is downright miraculous. I cannot say the same about Chan or Mo, but they do well enough with what they're given, particularly while playing their parts in the third act.

It's far from perfect, a lot of the less violent moments fall a bit flat, but when moving from one gunfight to the next . . . Hard Boiled is very hard to top. In fact, I may not see an action movie as good as this until I check out another John Woo movie from this part of his career. And I hope to be doing that quite soon.

9/10

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June-Claude Van Damme: Double Impact (1991)

Double Impact is the film in which we found out that the actor Jean-Claude Van Damme likes working alongside best is . . .  Jean-Claude Van Damme. Twins, clones, different timeline versions of himself, there are many plot devices that have been used to give viewers double the Van Damme-age, and it all started here.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is Alex, a nice martial artist who lives with his uncle, Frank (Geoffrey Lewis), and helps out in the running of their business. But it turns out that Frank isn't actually his uncle. And he has a twin brother named Chad, currently living in Hong Kong. Unbeknownst to Alex and Chad, they were separated as babies after the murder of their parents by two evil businessmen (Nigel Griffith, played by Alan Scarfe, and Raymond Zhang, played by Philip Chan). The time is right to get back what rightfully belongs to them, and get some good old-fashioned revenge.

Okay, the process of lining one Van Damme up alongside another may not have been as easy back in 1991 as it is nowadays but there are a lot of scenes here that work well, due in no small part to how well JCVD sells both of the different characters and also their interactions. Alex is the nicer guy, and the martial artist. Chad is a badass who tends to use guns, but can also do alright with his hands and feet when necessary. Director Sheldon Lettich isn't exactly asking for a nuanced performance from his star but things could have still ended up a lot worse.

Lewis is wonderful in his supporting role, at times parental and caring while at other times just wanting to bang heads together and get his two Van Dammes to stop squabbling and fulfil their potential. Alonna Shaw does well as the woman in between the twins, being the girlfriend of Chad and causing a certain amount of jealousy after initially mistaking Alex for her fella, and Corinna Everson makes quite an impression as a tough henchwoman. Scarfe and Chan are the typical bad guys who try to stay hidden behind their wall of muscle, and you can't blame them when that wall of muscle contains the mighty Bolo Yeung.

After their previous movie together, Death Warrant, it feels like Lettich and Van Damme worked together to come up with something much more fun, which this is. The pacing could be tighter, it could have done with some more Bolo Yeung (but what movie starring Bolo Yeung couldn't?), and it felt a bit odd at this point to see Van Damme using guns as much as he was using his martial arts, but this remains a fun time.

Oh, just one more thing, that shot of Van Damme appearing out of the darkness at the controls of a crane cab is superb. It's just a short moment, you'll know it when you see it, but it's SO well done that I felt I had to end this review by mentioning it.

7/10

You can treat yourself to Doble Impacto here.
Americans can get their Double in this triple.