2 From John Woo

John Woo has been mostly unsuccessful after being, um, wooed by Hollywood in the late 1992. Hard Target and Face/Off remain his most entertaining American efforts. But they both pale in comparison to most of his Hong Kong efforts. The Killer and Hard-Boiled are his 2 best . . .

The Killer – (1989)After he inadvertently blinds a singer, Chow Yun-Fat tries to quit his assassin job so he can take care of her. But the cops are hot on his trail and his former employer has other things in mind. Of all the fine-line-between-cops-and-crooks films that have come along the last 100 years, this is probably the best. There’s one stunning action scene after another and Woo’s camera is perfectly placed in the expositional dialogue scenes.

Hard-Boiled – (1992)

There’s a 2 ½ minute continuous shot in the climactic sequence at a hospital where Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung kill (at least) 33 bad guys. They take a break in the middle of the shot in an elevator for dialogue before going on a different floor. Woo’s operatic violence is endlessly entertaining. Is this the greatest action movie ever made? It’s up there with Die Hard, but since Die Hard successfully avoids a Lionel Richie song, it wins.