I've long been a fan of John Woo's films ever since I saw my first, HARD TARGET, about a decade ago. While I still love that movie, I'm aware that many of Woo's Chinese films are considered far superior to anything he's done in Hollywood. HARD-BOILED is a favourite thanks to the intense action but, having just watched BULLET IN THE HEAD, I can appreciate that this is perhaps his most intense and emotional film yet.
The story is a simple one: three young friends, all male, all ambitious, find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Vietnam, caught up with smugglers and the Vietcong army. What follows is an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak in equal measure. Woo focuses on the darker side of life (and death), making this his most downbeat yet. What happens is tragic and moving, yet captured with skilled direction and masterful action sequences that make it utterly compelling. It reminded me a little of the Korean war film BROTHEROOD, although this is superior.
The three young stars, Leung, Cheung, and Lee, each put in great performances on different sides of the spectrum. Leung is the clear-cut hero, with a conscience; Lee is the one sidetracked by a lust for riches, and Cheung is the comic relief, the one who finds himself in all sorts of scrapes. There's also a brilliant turn from Simon Yam who should have won an Oscar for his supporting performance here – it's the best I've ever seen him and makes me appreciate him as an actor far more than I did previously.
The movie is action-packed and has plenty of brilliant moments. Grenades, sticks of dynamites disguised as cigars, Vietcong torture and a car chase: it's all here, all pulse-pounding. The shoot-out in the bad guy's den recalls SCARFACE in terms of sheer over-the-top carnage, and takes some beating. The finale is over-the-top but works well, and in between we have all sorts of other stuff going down. The Vietcong prison camp sequence is one of the most powerful and disturbing I've seen filmed and it's pretty hard to watch. Blood often flows across the screen in this film and it's definitely not one for the faint hearted. Saying that, I can't help but view this as a masterpiece and a film which should be far better known than it currently is.
The story is a simple one: three young friends, all male, all ambitious, find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Vietnam, caught up with smugglers and the Vietcong army. What follows is an odyssey of discovery and heartbreak in equal measure. Woo focuses on the darker side of life (and death), making this his most downbeat yet. What happens is tragic and moving, yet captured with skilled direction and masterful action sequences that make it utterly compelling. It reminded me a little of the Korean war film BROTHEROOD, although this is superior.
The three young stars, Leung, Cheung, and Lee, each put in great performances on different sides of the spectrum. Leung is the clear-cut hero, with a conscience; Lee is the one sidetracked by a lust for riches, and Cheung is the comic relief, the one who finds himself in all sorts of scrapes. There's also a brilliant turn from Simon Yam who should have won an Oscar for his supporting performance here – it's the best I've ever seen him and makes me appreciate him as an actor far more than I did previously.
The movie is action-packed and has plenty of brilliant moments. Grenades, sticks of dynamites disguised as cigars, Vietcong torture and a car chase: it's all here, all pulse-pounding. The shoot-out in the bad guy's den recalls SCARFACE in terms of sheer over-the-top carnage, and takes some beating. The finale is over-the-top but works well, and in between we have all sorts of other stuff going down. The Vietcong prison camp sequence is one of the most powerful and disturbing I've seen filmed and it's pretty hard to watch. Blood often flows across the screen in this film and it's definitely not one for the faint hearted. Saying that, I can't help but view this as a masterpiece and a film which should be far better known than it currently is.