John Woo’s Hong Kong cop-thriller extravaganza from 1992 is now on rerelease; it is pure outrageous mayhem in which Woo showed that he was a pioneering maestro of the PAE – Pointless Action Explosion – as well as the Mexican-standoff set piece, in which a pair of sweaty, homicidal guys statically point guns in each other’s faces, mutually hypnotised by the sudden stalemate, a kind of Zen duplication/opposition of killer and victim.
Hard Boiled irresistibly combined two of the most compellingly beautiful men in Hong Kong cinema: Tony Leung and Chow Yun-fat. As Inspector “Tequila” Yuen, Chow became legendary in this film for the scenes in which he has to carry around an adorable baby during the final, entirely bizarre shootout in a hospital. He and his girlfriend-slash-police-officer Teresa Chang (Teresa Mo) have previously had to get all the newborns out of the maternity unit, having daintily put cotton buds in their ears so the poor little mites weren’t upset by the deafening gunfire. This scene appears to have mutated from a previous script draft about a baby-poisoning wacko, a gruesome idea that was thankfully junked in favour of this inspired image, which made Chow relatable as nothing else could.
