Hard Boiled review – John Woo’s outrageously explosive 1992 cop thriller is pure action mayhem

Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung face off in a wildly inventive film whose hospital shootout remains one of cinema’s most irresistible set pieces 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 t...

By Peter Bradshaw