aka Dip Huet Seung Hung

• Written and directed by John Woo
• Starring
  • Chow Yun-Fat
  • Danny Lee
  • Sally Yeh
  • Chu Kong
• Produced by Hark Tsui

Four words:

This.
Movie.
Kicks.
Ass.

Chow Yun-Fat is Jeffrey, a hit man at the top of his profession. During a job at a restaurant/nightclub (where he blows away the target, all his three hundred henchmen, and half of Hong Kong), he accidentally blinds Jennifer, the club’s singer, with his muzzle flash. He starts to get protective of her, and after he rescues her from muggers, the two become very close.

He decides to retire after his next hit, which will pay for Jennifer’s cornea transplants. But after he offs the next guy, crimelord Tony Wang, he finds himself with two problems: 1) Inspector Lee, the bad-boy cop, ain’t gonna let him get away; and 2) Johnnie Wang, Tony’s nephew who ordered the hit, wants Jeffrey taken out as security.

Let the bullets fly.

This is one of the John Woo films that made America sit up and say, “Whoa! Why’ve we been making movies like Die Hard?” Woo loads this movie with bullets, fistfights, bullets, explosions, bullets, actual character development, bullets… did I mention bullets? By my rough estimate, there was approximately one firearm discharge per frame of film.

But it’s not just shooting. It’s watching two men with absolute confidence in their killing abilities. None of this “shoot the enemy once” crap; these guys have a gun in each hand, and load at least four slugs into each target. Gotta make sure he’s dead, you know.

Best scene: Jeffrey returns to Jennifer’s apartment to find Lee there. Instantly, they each have a gun against the other’s jawline. Jennifer wanders out of the kitchen and says, “Jeffrey, is that you? Oh good, you know each other,” and the two men proceed to carry on a polite conversation in front of her, never letting her know they’re ready to blow each other away.

There’s a lot here about honor, too. Lee feels honorbound to bring Jeffrey in, but at the same time he realizes (reluctantly) that they’re the same creature on opposite sides of the fence. Sidney, an older hitman who’s now a go-between who sets up the hits for the Wang organization, tries to regain his honor after he inadvertantly sets Jeffrey up. And Jeffrey finds a better life’s work than killing people: Helping the woman he loves.

Sure, a lot of the plot elements sound corny (I didn’t realize how badly until I actually wrote the words “eye operation”). But it’s a flawless mixture. Part buddy movie, part kung-fu movie (though there’s very little martial-art action, it still enjoys that sense of choreography that the best Hong Kong movies share), part spaghetti western, part mob movie… Damn.

The only flaw in my view experience was that niggling feeling that the dubbed dialog wasn’t doing the original justice. Several times I said, “I sure hope that sounds less goofy in Cantonese.”

Suggest this one next time someone wants to watch the latest Bruce Willis actioner.