John Woo's last film before he headed off to America, Hard Boiled contains THE BEST action scenes ever filmed.

From anime to live action, A-list to B-flick, kung fu to gangster, Bogie to Keanu Reeves, I say that there is no film with action like Hard Boiled.  Nothing that gets your adrenaline moving, makes you sit up in your seat, makes you laugh with disbelief like Hard Boiled.  

The plot is nothing special.  Standard good-guy, bad-guy stuff.  The acting is great.  Chow Yun-Fat (The Killer) and Tony Leung (Hero), two of my favorite action stars, head up the cast, with brilliant work by Anthony Wong as the bad guy.  This film also has my favorite supporting villain of all time: Mad Dog.  Philip Kwok, as Mad Dog, is simply the most perfectly badass character of all time.

Don't let me give the impression that the movie is simply an action-fest with no heart, though.  The characters are nicely introduced, grow and change, and their personalities bring them to a satisfying ending.  The relationships are well handled and acted.  

On to the action!  It's not terribly varied...I'll say that right out.  We've got gunfights in a teahouse, gunfights in a warehouse, gunfights on a boat, and gunfights in a hospital.  No car chase.  No underwater fight.  No helicopter.  But when you see the film, you'll understand why that doesn't matter.  Woo's beautiful and joyful destruction of the environment and the people in it remains captivating through every second of the film, so much so that simply watching the same scene over and over seems completely realistic.  Bullets fly freely, things explode, bodies careen through the air, and glass and plaster shower actors as John Woo embarasses every big-budget action movie around.  Slow motion is used liberally to brilliant effect, but the action still seems to move at a furious pace.  The movie's bodycount apparently weighs in at a happy 230, and I highly doubt that that's an exaggeration.  This movie may raise violence to an art form, but it's still violent as hell.

All in all, this is easily one of my favorite movies, and I urge anyone with an interest in action to see it.

I just love this movie. It ranks alongside Woo's The Killer as my all-time favourite action movie. The thing that sets Woo apart isn't just his choreographed and beautifully filmed set-pieces, it's that his characters are so powerful, and I don't mean that in a brick shithouse kind of way, he actually infuses his characters with emotion and inner conflict. Much of this seems to have been lost when he moved to Hollywood.

A must see for action fans. Check out The Killer as well.