Planet X Cinema: Hard Boiled

Planet X Cinema fanatics Blair and Drew Hicks unequivocally declare John Woo’s Hard Boiled (1992) to be “the greatest action movie ever filmed,” and it’s hard to disagree. Woo’s swan song to Asian cinema before moving on to Hollywood, Hard Boiled centers on Hong Kong Police Inspector “Tequila” Yuen (Chow Yun Fat), who finds himself way over his head when he accidentally steps into the midst of a gang war. It’s hard to describe Hard Boiled’s high-energy plot and massive action showpieces without spoiling the fun, so just trust me when I say that the picture of the cop holding a baby on the movie poster totally pays off. Woo followed up Hard Boiled with Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target (1993), followed soon after by the Nic Cage vs. John Travolta body-morphing action extravaganza Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible II (2000), cementing himself as an international auteur of action. The Hicks bros will kick off the night with a pre-show intro that will prime the audience with some Woo factoids, but this isn’t going to be some kind of film school lecture — once it starts rolling, Hard Boiled will speak for itself.