Category: Features

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Features Live Action Movies

Hard Boiled
(Lat Sau San Taam,
辣手神探)

Director – John Woo –1992 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 128m

*****

One of the greatest action pictures ever made – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July, and is also out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray

Woo’s directorial valediction to Hong Kong, at least for a time as he attempted to break Hollywood, rehashes his now familiar territory of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal, etched in trademark bullets and blood with grander and greater operatic flourish than his earlier efforts. On-screen alter-ego Chow Yun-fat (The Killer, John Woo, 1989; An Autumn‘s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987) is cast for the first time in Woo not as gangster but cop, bonding with a ruthless triad hit man Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai from Bullet In The Head, John Woo, 1990, In The Mood For Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000; Lust Caution, Ang Lee, 2007; Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021). For good measure, Woo throws in therising, young gangster killing the old leader to take over the mob from A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986) (here played by Anthony Wong and Kwan Hui-sang respectively).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Bullet in the Head
(Diexue Sietou,
喋血街头)

Director – John Woo – 1990 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 126m

*****

Three teenage friends forced to leave Hong Kong by a gang war find themselves in the middle of the horrors of war-torn Vietnam – plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July

John Woo’s American canon never quite produced anything comparable to his earlier, groundbreaking Hong Kong actioners which, as well as being much more violent, possess a stronger emotional core – perhaps none more so than Bullet In The Head, a Far East Asian cross between Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) and The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978) with Salvador (Oliver Stone, 1986) thrown in for good measure.

Arguably Woo’s most personal HK outing, falling as it does outside the cop / triad actioners for which he’s best known, it was originally intended as a prequel to the two A Better Tomorrow films (1986, 1987) Woo made with producer Tsui Hark. However, following creative differences, Tsui retained megastar (and Woo onscreen alter-ego) Chow Yun Fat for A Better Tomorrow III Love and Death In Saigon (Tsui Hark, 1989) while Woo took the material and developed it on his own, acting uncharacteristically as his own producer.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Hard Target

Director – John Woo – 1993 – US – Cert. 18 – 100m (UK version), 86m (US version)

****

John Woo’s US debut is a New Orleans remake of The Most Dangerous Game with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme – plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July

Essentially the first of two remakes of The Most Dangerous Game / The Hounds Of Zaroff (Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel, 1932, shot using the same cast, crew and jungle sets as King Kong, (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) – the second being Surviving The Game (Ernest R. Dickinson, 1994) – this updates the original’s remote island to the urban jungle of and countryside surrounding New Orleans, making its mad game hunter (Lance Henriksen taking on the role originally played by Leslie Banks) prey not on lost seafarers but unemployed down and outs on dry land.

In true New Right nineties spirit, the hunter of humans has now graduated from being merely a gratifying personal sport for deranged psychopaths to a lucrative business attracting high rolling, thrill-seeking clients who get to pull the trigger themselves.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Once a Thief
(Chung Hang Sei Hoi,
縱橫四海,
lit: Criss-Cross
Over Four Seas)

Director – John Woo – 1991 – Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 107m

****1/2

Lightweight caper movie bult around three orphans – two boys in love wth the third child, a girl – raised to become professional art thieves – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July, and is out on 4K UHD on Friday, 3rd August

Three orphans adopted from the street are raised together in Hong Kong by gang boss Chow (Kenneth Tsang) to become professional art thieves – with the two boys Red Bean Pudding (Chow Yun Fat from Hard Boiled, 1992; The Killer, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, 1986, all John Woo) and James (Leslie Cheung from Happy Together, Wong Kar-wai, 1997; A Chinese Ghost Story, Tsui Hark, 1987; A Better Tomorrow, John Woo, 1986) growing up equally in love with the girl Red Bean (Cherie Chung from Wild Search, Ringo Lam, 1989, An Autumn’s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987; Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark, 1986).

Its best set piece is the opener in which the trio steal a Modigliani painting from a moving lorry, and the whole thing benefits greatly from expertise of Remy Julien (from Bond movies Goldeneye, Martin Campbell, 1995; The Living Daylights, John Glen, 1987; For Your Eyes Only, John Glen, 1981) in the car and motorbike stunt / chase department.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Killer
(Dip Huet
Seung Hung,
喋血雙雄)

Director – John Woo – 1989 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 110m

*****

Having accidentally blinded a nightclub singer in a hit, a gunman takes on one last job to fund the operation to restore her eyesight – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July

Following the success of A Better Tomorrow (1986), this secured John Woo the international interest that would eventually bring Hollywood offers. Woo further distils A Better Tomorrow’s themes of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal through the device of a cop first facing off against and subsequently bonding with the assassin he’s pursuing; many consider The Killer Woo’s finest achievement.

Professional assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) accidentally blinds nightclub singer Jennie (Sally Yeh) with a stray bullet in a hit to become the focus of his guilt. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is trying to catch him.

The backdrop is already familiar Woo and Hong Kong gangster genre territory – triad hits and betrayals, working cops misunderstood by their superiors. The action set pieces rank among the director’s finest: the opening night club slaying, the Dragon Boat Festival hit followed by the fight on the beach, car chases and multi-storey car park shoot outs, all topped by the brilliantly choreographed and seemingly endless final shoot out wherein killer and cop join forces in a church surrounded by unfriendly gangsters.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Better Tomorrow
(Yingxiong Bense,
英雄本色)

Director – John Woo – 1986 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 94m

*****

The seminal gangster movie that crystallised John Woo’s now-trademark style of brotherhood, bullets and blood and catapulted Chow Yun Fat to Oriental, big screen stardom – 4K Restoration plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: The Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026

After a decade directing comedies and kung fu movies (many for Golden Harvest), Woo’s last two films had been box office flops when producer Tsui Hark gave him the opportunity to make A Better Tomorrow, loosely based at least in plot and character terms on the gritty The Story of a Discharged Prisoner / Yingxiong Bense (Kong Lung, 1967).

Hong Kong’s cinema owners had no problems with two of the three proposed leading men – Ti Lung (from Drunken Master II, Liu Chia-Liang, 1994; Shaolin Temple, Chang Cheh, Wu Ma, 1976) had achieved great success in director Chang Cheh’s martial arts epics at Shaw Brothers (Woo had worked as assistant to Chang early in his career) and Leslie Cheung (from Happy Together, Wong Kar-wai, 1997; Once a Thief, John Woo, 1991; A Chinese Ghost Story, Tsui Hark, 1987) was a successful singer – but Tsui and Woo had to fight hard for third lead Chow Yun Fat, a big TV star lacking any box office clout.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Rogue Trooper

Director – Duncan Jones – 2026 – UK – Cert. 15 tbc – 90 m

*****

In the ongoing war between the North and the South, a small elite fighting unit is dropped onto the planet to clear the way for advancing forces – premieres in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

To the uninitiated, Rogue Trooper was one of the staple strips of groundbreaking British comic 2000 A.D. I mention this because to a critic coming in cold to the script, where main characters are confusingly named as numbers like 19 or 27, it’s a near-impossible film to synopsise.

Which is not to say that there isn’t a plot – there most definitely is one – more that it’s difficult to sort out what’s going on from the get-go. Although this is essentially science-fiction, it may also represent one of the strongest, on-the-ground portrayals of the fog of war the cinema has given us, with much of the battlefield action quite literally shrouded in a permanent haze of smoke from gunfire and explosions.

In addition, wider shots of views of the planet deliver impressive vistas which hark back to background painting effects in movies Forbidden Planet (Fred M.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Exit 8
(Hachiban Deguchi,
8番出口)

Director – Genki Kawamura – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 95m

*****

A commuter tries to leave the Tokyo Underground but finds himself retracing his steps within a repeating system from which there is no exit – out on digital Monday, June 8th and Blu-ray Monday, June 29th in the UK and Ireland

A packed carriage on the Tokyo Underground. A commuter (Kazunari Ninomiya from Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood, 2006), heading to his first day at a new job, can’t help but notice a young mother whose baby is crying. This is not a situation anyone likes to find themselves in, least of all the young mother. One male passenger takes it upon himself to berate and belittle the woman for selfishly allowing her child to make a noise in such a crowded, public space, inconveniencing everyone present. On one level, is he simply voicing what everyone else in the carriage is thinking? On another, is he completely out of order? After all, the mother is not the child making the noise, and she is doing her best to calm it. The irate passenger is clearly not helping the situation.

Perhaps someone should intervene and tell the man to leave the woman alone.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies Music

The Obsessed
(Toritsukare Otoko,
トリツカレ男,
lit. Obsessed Man)

Director – Wataru Takahashi – 2025 – Japan – Cert. PG tbc – 90m

*****

An obsessive becomes fixated on a woman he sees in a park – sweet, romantic drama plays in the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 which runs from Sunday, 21st June to Saturday 27th June

Giuseppe (voice: Masaya Sano) becomes obsessed with things. It’s just the way he is. His current obsession is singing. So obsessed that he messes up at work. His restaurant boss is basically a good guy who has tried over the years to look out for his employee as he has become obsessed with, in turn, insects, or ice hockey, or sunglasses. Sometimes his patience is stretched to the limit.

One day, he meets a mouse,(voice: Hayato Kakizawa), befriends him, names him Cielo, and invites the little guy into his home. One past obsession was learning languages – Giuseppe chalked up about 15 and picks up mouse language fairly easily. The mouse worries about Giuseppe, whose flights of fancy mean he’s not a particularly grounded individual.

Another day, walking in the park, Giuseppe sees a pretty girl selling balloons, and she becomes his new object of obsession. He spends days in despair as he can’t find her anywhere.… Read the rest