Tag: action

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A Better Tomorrow II
(Yingxiong Bense 2,
英雄本色2)

A Better Tomorrow II (Yingxiong Bense 2, 英雄本色2)

Director – John Woo – 1987 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 105m – Workprint cut 140m

The first half **

The second half *****

Workprint cut *****

To continue the franchise, Chow Yun-fat returns playing the brother of his character in the first film, a New York restaurateur – 4K Restoration is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Monday, 28th September

There’s something hugely endearing when Chow Yun-fat appears here, playing the brother of his character in the first film, insisting his name is not Mark but Ken. Nevertheless, he has on hand his late brother’s coat, with a few holes from bullets, to don in the closing scenes. Mark can’t possibly return having died at the end of the first film, and yet, to all intents and purposes, he’s back for this sequel!

The film as it appeared in release prints feels like little more than an excuse to have another big shoot out with Chow Yun-fat and others at the end, and you can feel Woo struggling as he tries to find a way of getting there without completely losing interest.

(Update: for struggling read; struggling with the editing required to get the film down to 105 minutes for cinema release.… Read the rest

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A Better Tomorrow
(Yingxiong Bense,
英雄本色)

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 is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Monday, 28th September

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 Live Action Movies

Terminator 2
Judgment Day

Terminator 2 Judgment Day

Director – James Cameron – 1991 – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – back out in UK and Ireland cinemas in 4K and, where available, 3D to mark its 35th anniversary on Friday, September 4th 2026

In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

What makes the film work is the mother and son element. Sarah is a believer in Terminators, the coming war against the machines, and humanity’s fightback in a world where such beliefs are dismissed as delusions.… Read the rest

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Terminator 2
Judgment Day
3D

Terminator 2 Judgment Day 3D

Director – James Cameron – 1991 (3D version 2017) – US – Cert. 15 – 127m

*****

A second Terminator is sent from the future to kill the future leader of the war against the machines – back out in UK and Ireland cinemas in 4K and, where available, 3D, to mark its 35th anniversary on Friday, September 4th 2026

Painstakingly remastered in 3D, this plays as well in its current rerelease as it did back in 1991. In the 1984 original, a Terminator robot (Arnold Schwarznegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother-to-be of the leader of the war in the future against the machines, who are exterminating humanity.

This sequel sees a more advanced T-1000 robot (Robert Patrick) sent back in time to kill Sarah’s now-ten-year-old son John (Ed Furlong). Another Terminator (Schwarzengger) is also running around in the present (i.e. 1991).

Sarah’s recurring nightmare pictures the coming apocalypse when the machines unleash nuclear missiles on humanity. That aside, this is basically an essay on mothers and sons – and fathers and sons – wrapped up in the best chase movie you’ve ever seen.

Unlike the 3D conversion of the same director’s Titanic (1997) which proved 3D to be a greatly improved, astonishing revelation, the improvements afforded T2 by 3D are comparatively minor (though they’re peerlessly executed).… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Stop! That! Train!

Stop! That! Train!

Director – Adam Shankman – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 90m

***

A luxury bullet train hurtles towards a stormaganza in what is essentially Airplane! rehashed with drag queens – disaster movie and alleged comedy is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 21st

Commerical break. The Glamazonian Express. The bullet train ride across America where your every whim will be catered for by glamourous hostesses clad in a fetching, bright red. Pampering is the order of the day. Nothing is too much to ask. All the passengers and staff are chic and beautiful people.

Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujubee) are train hostesses with low budget competitor Stank Rail. In marked contrast to Glamazonian staff, their uniforms are excrement brown and urine yellow-green. Their colleague Barbra (Latrice Royale) has recently been laid off, and further redundancies appear likely. Back at rail training college, the pair pledged to “See America”, but their career trajectory since then has been down the lavatory.

Then they overhear Glamazonian hostesses talking about a departure to Florida delayed because some hostesses have failed to show up. A quick visit to the ladies to improvise makeshift red uniforms, and they themselves show up at Glamazonian’s check-in desk, are given uniforms by Barbra (who does several jobs and will later reappear in other roles), and suddenly are Glamazonian hostesses.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Odyssey
(2026)

The Odyssey (2026)

Director – Christopher Nolan – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 172m

**** (regular cinema version, not the 70mm IMAX print)

While Odysseus is lost presumed dead returning home from the Trojan Wars to his island Kingdom of Ithaca, his wife is confronted with multiple suitors – out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 17th

For anyone unfamiliar with the classical Greek literature source, Homer’s Odyssey is about a journey (with which meaning the word odyssey is synonymous in modern parlance). Odysseus (Matt Damon) fights for ten years (a time span unclear in the new film) in the Trojan Wars, then spends another ten getting home to his island Kingdom of Ithaca (the film is clear that he’s away a total of 20 years).

Homer doesn’t play out his narrative in linear form, but goes back and forth, for instance using flashbacks. Nolan’s screenplay uses a framing device of Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) holding out against numerous suitors hoping she’ll marry one of them and make him king, remarkably similar to that other recent, inferior adaptation of (the Ithaca bits of) the Odyssey, The Return (Umberto Pasolini, 2024), except that Nolan’s instincts for casting are a lot stronger and he has a bigger crew and budget with which to play.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Red Cliff
(Chì Bì,
赤壁);
Red Cliff II
(Chì Bì
Jue Zhan Tian Xia,
赤壁（下）)

Red Cliff (Chì Bì, 赤壁);

Red Cliff II (Chì Bì Jue Zhan Tian Xia, 赤壁（下）)

Director – John Woo – 2008, 2009 – China, Hong Kong – Cert. 15 – 139m + 135m

*****

As a warlord seeks to crush opposition in Southern China, its two kingdoms join forces to defeat him, with the deciding battle taking place at Red Cliff – plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026

China, 208 A.D., around the end of the Han Dynasty. With the puppet Emperor more interested in talking to birds than the nitty-gritty of ruling his kingdom, his Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) talks him into a commission to subdue the rival Southern warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen).

After a battle against the former’s forces in which his a loyal soldier is unable to prevent Liu’s wife getting killed but manages to get their baby to safety by strapping it on his back prior to single-handed combat, Liu’s advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) sets out to persuade Sun Qian to join them in an alliance against the aggressor.… Read the rest

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Face/Off

Face/Off

Director – John Woo – 1997 – US – Cert. 18 – 138m

*****

John Woo’s third and strongest US film to date has FBI agent John Travolta switching faces with villain Nic Cage – plays as part of Bullets and Brotherhood: the Films of John Woo at BFI Southbank from Friday, 3rd July to Friday, 31st July 2026

When screenwriters Mike Werb and Michael Colleary collaborated on original screenplay Face/Off, they had in mind such classic films as post-war gangster tale White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) and identity change outing Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966). Only after completing an initial draft did Colleary see a John Woo movie – The Killer (1989) – at which point he immediately knew the pair had found the perfect director for their material.

This was clearly reciprocal – if Woo had already astounded Hong Kong audiences with A Better Tomorrow (1986) and crossed over internationally with The Killer and Hard Boiled (1992), he had yet to win comparable critical acclaim in America, even though his modest budget American debut Hard Target (1993) had had its admirers and his first blockbusting actioner Broken Arrow (1996) had impressed Hollywood with its box office.

These films both felt like the work of a director for hire not an auteur, and while Woo, like numerous Hollywood immigrants before him, could probably have continued in similar vein, the Face/Off script contained exactly the elements the director needed to take up in Hollywood where he’d left off in Hong Kong.… Read the rest

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Hard Boiled
(Lat Sau San Taam,
辣手神探)

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

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