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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Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021)

The past couple of years have proven to be quite challenging for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as they have proven to be quite challenging to numerous movie productions and companies. But Marvel seemed to be in a more precarious position than most, already having many people voice their concern over where things would go after the massive success of the films that ended the superb, long-running, storyline that culminated in "the snap" from Thanos.

Let's not spend too much time worrying about them though. Despite a mixed reception, they have still spent the past couple of years releasing films like this one, Eternals, and Black Widow, and making a great mix of TV shows such as Loki, WandaVision, Captain America And The Winter Soldier, and Hawkeye. Whether you love or hate them, they keep making blockbuster entertainment with a consistent minimum standard of quality, in my view, and they keep managing to set things in place to give them many options of whatever path they choose to take in the years ahead.

Take this film, for example. This is another Marvel movie that now happily mixes in the magical and mythical with the sci-fi elements. It all starts when Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung) discovers ten mystical rings, allowing him eternal life and superpowers. He then meets, and falls in love with, a woman. Children are born. Love wins. Temporarily.
That happened some years ago. Back in the here and now, Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is a bit of a loveable loser who enjoys spending time with his friend, Katy (Awkwafina). He's not special, at least not in the eyes of most people around him. That all changes when members of the Ten Rings, the army headed up by Wenwu, attack Shang-Chi, desperate to gain ownership of a pendant given to him by his mother. Shang-Chi immediately heads off to warn his sister, Xialing (Meng'er Zhang), because she has a similar pendant. They soon realise that their father, because Wenwu IS their father, wants the pendants to find the mystical village his deceased wife lived in, convinced that he can be with her once again. But the messages he is hearing are lies, delivered to his mind by something that needs his help to break free.

It's pretty redundant to review a decent Marvel movie nowadays. Obviously there are more interesting words to say about the best and worst of their output. They know what they're doing, they have a great team of people working on each film, and they often get their casting pretty perfect. Such is the case here. Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings may lose steam in the third act, where it suffers from that blockbuster mis-step of big CGI battling big CGI, but there's easily enough here to please fans of this kind of fare. The extended action sequences which have Shang-Chi battling the Ten Rings are the highlights, leaving the film a little adrift when nothing else can top them, but you also get some good humour and a nice running commentary on determinism and real power. 

As good as Liu, Awkwafina, and Zhang are, and they are excellent (with both Liu and Zhang doing very well with the physical side of their roles), the real treat here is seeing the likes of Leung and Yeoh (for a second time) getting a small piece of that Marvel pie. It's also fun to see another small turn from Benedict Wong, reprising the character of Wong, and one other returning main character proved to be a very pleasant surprise, and had more of an involved role than the last time he was used onscreen in these movies. There's nobody doing bad work here, at all, but I do need to single out Florian Munteanu, who makes a strong impression as the aptly-named Razor Fist, a main henchman wielding a red-hot machete blade where his right hand should be.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton helped to write the screenplay with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham, and the team work together well. They may have the might of Marvel behind/helping them, but there's nothing here that shows Cretton feeling out of his depth with his sudden leap from smaller fare such as Just Mercy, The Glass Castle, and Short Term 12. It might be easier to get this kind of thing right with a whole army of people ready to ensure you stay in line with the overall vision of the brand,  but that is no guarantee that the end result will show that. This gets much more right than wrong.

The interconnectivity remains the best thing that Marvel worked on, however, and that's why I know so many people will already know whether or not they are going to watch this. If, like me, you have been on the complete journey so far then you can't just stop, cold turkey. Things keep being set up that you know will pay off, be it this year, next year, or maybe a decade down the line. If you managed to resist the allure of the polished MCU product when they were a bit less practiced at lining up all of their cinematic stepping stones then you checked out by the time you read the title of this review.

I really wish the final act had been better, but I can't deny that the rest worked well for me. And the fight sequences at least have a fluidity and choreography that puts them on par with the best of Hollywood martial arts (which is still, lest we forget, rarely on a par with actual martial arts depicted in non-Hollywood movies).

8/10

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Election (2005)

People have been telling me for some time now that I really should see some movies by Johnnie To. Well, I have responded at last. Election (and its sequel) are films often recommended as a good starting point and, through a fortunate turn of events (a film club nomination), I finally got to see what all the fuss was about.

Simon Yam plays Lam Lok and Tony Leung plays Big D, two men vying for the position of Chairman of Hong Kong's Triad society. Lok is a calm man who shows foresight and patience and will look after the elders while Big D is a quick-tempered and aggressive man who, nonetheless, could make a good leader with his fearless attitude and his blunt approach that so often gets results. After some discussion, the position goes to Lok. Big D isn't happy about that, not one little bit, and he starts to cause trouble, trouble that may very well lead to widespread in-fighting and division in the society. A chase is on for the special baton that is handed over to each chairman as a symbol of the power being passed along and, in the meantime, Lok also tries to come up with a solution that will placate Big D and keep everyone else happy too.

It's all about politics and traditions, but Triad politics and traditions are a damn sight more interesting than anything that may be happening in the Houses Of Parlaiment here in the UK (or on Capitol Hill, for my American friends . . . . . . did I get that right? Forgive me if I just showed off my ignorance once more).

The script by Nai-hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip is good at sketching out the characters and guiding the viewer into the Triad world before moving around amongst various factions, but it falls down during a middle section that spends far too much time putting more and more individuals onscreen just to have them chasing after that coveted baton.

The direction from To is very good, despite the dip in that middle section he never really lets things slow down to a standstill and he strikes a nice balance when showing some of the more violent moments onscreen. Viewers get to see what's being done, but nothing feels as if it's overly gratuitous. The other great thing, in terms of both the writing and direction, is how natural he motivations of the characters are. Nobody does anything that seems out of character and even any plot twists and turns make complete sense when considering the bigger political game being played.

The cast all do a great job, but it's really all about Yam and Leung, two men who are almost polar opposites and create a great crackle of static electricity between them. Chung Wang, Tian-lin Wang, Bing-Man Tam, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung and Ka Tung Lam are amongst the many other great actors all doing their bit to keep the Triad political wheels in motion and all deserve a mention here, which is why I have reeled off their names. There are more I could list, of course, but I think the names mentioned provide a great representative sample of the talent.

This may not be the very best that Johnnie To has to offer, but as a starting point . . . . . . . . . it gets my vote (sorry, pun intended).

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Election-DVD-Johnny/dp/B000FOPOA2/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1359755615&sr=1-2