Let me start by saying that I have a deep, deep love for this film, and have had ever since I saw it as a kid.
It had everything I adored back then and still adore now. Cool characters, beautiful people, great action, and even some decent music.
And having seen it again recently with a more critical eye, I can safely say it still holds up.
Most of that is due to Chow Yun Fat, who makes the best entry into American cinema among his contemporaries. While Jackie Chan and Jet Li would get saddled with Americanised versions of their films that would chop the action up like a bad music video and add comic relief sidekicks, Chow Yun Fat is treated with a lot more respect.
A big part of it is probably because John Woo himself was brought in to help with the fight scenes, meaning the young director Antoine Fuqua (whatever happened to him, hey?) got the absolute best help he could ever want when it came to making things look good.
As much as I love John Wick, the slick gunfights of that series have nothing on the sheer destructive power of a John Woo setpiece. Bodies fly through the air spewing grat geysers of blood. Glass shatters into millions of pieces. Computers explode in dazzling displays of sparks and wood chips sail across the screen as bullet hits are brought to life.
It is all visually dazzling. A manic display of destruction that makes you feel the power of a gun. And while in no way realistic, it is more FUN. Woo understood that cinema is about the visuals, not making things realistic.
Chow's performance is brilliant here, too. While Chan and Li would take a while to fully show off their acting talents, you can see that Chow Yun Fat always had dramatic chops. It's what made him such a good lead for John Woo, who would often mix his action with emotional weight.
Our hero says nothing for the first ten minutes of the movie, but you can tell from the opening gunfight and the look on his face that he's conflicted. That he hates this job. Hates killing. But he's so damn good at it that his masters won't let him go.
It's all written on his face, which goes through a range of emotions and no words are needed to tell us what he's thinking.
Then we have the supporting cast, which is chock full of brilliant character actors and B Movie regulars that always turn in brilliant performances - no matter what the budget of the film.
Rooker as the determined cop. Mira as the love interest/fellow fugitive. Jurgen Prochnow as a scary crime boss. Everyone does well in their roles.
But the star is clearly Chow. With his stoic, almost unbearably cool presence, with everything from the way he swaggers across the screen to how he pulls money from his suit telling you that this guy is THE coolest man to ever exist. Period.
The film plays around that, with a simple story and some excellently done action that helps the film run smoothly from one scene to the next, without room for you to get bored.
This is a classic action movie, and one that should be revered as one of the only Hollywood films to ever come close to the brilliance of 80s and 90s HK action cinema.
It had everything I adored back then and still adore now. Cool characters, beautiful people, great action, and even some decent music.
And having seen it again recently with a more critical eye, I can safely say it still holds up.
Most of that is due to Chow Yun Fat, who makes the best entry into American cinema among his contemporaries. While Jackie Chan and Jet Li would get saddled with Americanised versions of their films that would chop the action up like a bad music video and add comic relief sidekicks, Chow Yun Fat is treated with a lot more respect.
A big part of it is probably because John Woo himself was brought in to help with the fight scenes, meaning the young director Antoine Fuqua (whatever happened to him, hey?) got the absolute best help he could ever want when it came to making things look good.
As much as I love John Wick, the slick gunfights of that series have nothing on the sheer destructive power of a John Woo setpiece. Bodies fly through the air spewing grat geysers of blood. Glass shatters into millions of pieces. Computers explode in dazzling displays of sparks and wood chips sail across the screen as bullet hits are brought to life.
It is all visually dazzling. A manic display of destruction that makes you feel the power of a gun. And while in no way realistic, it is more FUN. Woo understood that cinema is about the visuals, not making things realistic.
Chow's performance is brilliant here, too. While Chan and Li would take a while to fully show off their acting talents, you can see that Chow Yun Fat always had dramatic chops. It's what made him such a good lead for John Woo, who would often mix his action with emotional weight.
Our hero says nothing for the first ten minutes of the movie, but you can tell from the opening gunfight and the look on his face that he's conflicted. That he hates this job. Hates killing. But he's so damn good at it that his masters won't let him go.
It's all written on his face, which goes through a range of emotions and no words are needed to tell us what he's thinking.
Then we have the supporting cast, which is chock full of brilliant character actors and B Movie regulars that always turn in brilliant performances - no matter what the budget of the film.
Rooker as the determined cop. Mira as the love interest/fellow fugitive. Jurgen Prochnow as a scary crime boss. Everyone does well in their roles.
But the star is clearly Chow. With his stoic, almost unbearably cool presence, with everything from the way he swaggers across the screen to how he pulls money from his suit telling you that this guy is THE coolest man to ever exist. Period.
The film plays around that, with a simple story and some excellently done action that helps the film run smoothly from one scene to the next, without room for you to get bored.
This is a classic action movie, and one that should be revered as one of the only Hollywood films to ever come close to the brilliance of 80s and 90s HK action cinema.