Hard Boiled (15) + intro

In the 80s and 90s, director John Woo would cement his reputation as a master of action films with classics like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Bullet in the Head. This would culminate in 1992 with the release of his masterpiece Hard Boiled - the hyperkinetic, hyperviolent exemplar of the Heroic Bloodshed genre.

Iconic actor Chow Yun-fat stars as Tequila, a gung-ho cop working to bring down Johnny Wong, the villainous triad boss who maintains a stranglehold on Hong Kong’s illegal gun trade.

Johnny attempts to recruit Ah-Long, an assassin from a rival syndicate, just as the insubordinate Tequila gets taken off the case. Taking justice into his own hands, Tequila tracks Ah-Long down and uncovers an intricate web of deception that threatens to boil over into all-out war.

A fiery coalescence of electrifying performances, elaborate narrative and operatic gunfights, Hard Boiled has rightly been exalted as the undisputed champion of Hong Kong action films.