History Film / HardBoiled

Hard Boiled is all about two cops - one undercover, another much maligned for always, always playing the Bad Cop (tm) - working together to bring down a gunrunning ring. There is plenty of plot in between which establishes the characters of Tequila (the Bad Cop) and Alan (the undercover cop) nicely.

* DeathEqualRedemption: [[spoiler: Mad Dog.]]

** Which is ruined by [[spoiler: Johnny and some of his men bursting in and shooting through the patients JUST SO HE CAN HIT ALAN, causing Mad Dog to briefly switch sides]]

-->'''[[CompleteMonster Johnny:]]''' Oh, why do you care about what happens to them.

->[[spoiler: '''Alan''': Did I just shoot a cop?\\

* NobleDemon/NobleTopEnforcer: Johnny Wong's right hand man, Mad Dog, who wants to let the hostages at the hospital go and [[spoiler: eventually turns on Johnny when he kills some crippled patients just to get at Allan]].

* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Mad Dog.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: The obvious example would be the birds, always with the damn birds, Mr. Woo.

* NobleDemon: Johnny Wong's right hand man, Mad Dog, who wants to let the hostages at the hospital go and [[spoiler: eventually turns on Johnny when he kills some crippled patients just to get at Allan]].

* BlackAndGrayMorality: This film is your classic story of a cop who shoots first and asks questions later, and an undercover cop who kills people for the mob in order to maintain his cover, up against an ruthless gun smuggler and his gang.

* GoryDiscretionShot: While at the hospital, [[spoiler: Mad Dog uses a scalpel to kill an informant. Just we're treated to a close up shot of the scalpel being pressed against the informant's neck, we cut to a shot of his blood spraying across the window.]]

* RedShirtArmy - Played straight with the cops at the teahouse, averted with the [=SDU=] team at the hospital.

* RedShirtArmy - Played straight with the cops at the teahouse, averted with the SWAT team at the hospital.

Hard Boiled is a critically-acclaimed action film by John Woo, starring Chow Yun-Fat in his slightly younger years. This 1992 action classic that has aged very gracefully, and boasts action very few modern contemporary films can match up to. Has a sequel in the form of a computer game called ''{{Stranglehold}}'', also produced by John Woo.

* BeyondTheImpossible: If ''TheKiller'' took John Woo's trademark action tropes [[UpToEleven up to 11,]] then ''Hard Boiled'' took them [[MemeticMutation Over 9000.]]

* EyeScream [[spoiler: Johnny Wong's death at the end of Tequila's gun. The climax of a series of [[BeyondTheImpossible ever-escalating]] [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments Of Awesome.]]]]

* TragicBromance: [[spoiler:Tequila and Alan]]

* HeroicSociopath: [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation You can arguably describe]] Tequila as this.

** Which is ruined by [[spoiler: Johnny and some of his men bursting in and simply killing the patients, causing Mad Dog to briefly switch sides]]

* HandCannon: One of the guns that sees extensive use is a single-shot Thompson/Center Contender, wielded by Mad Dog.

* TheDanza: Tony is played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai.

* ShootTheDog: Johnny does it throughout the movie

** When Mad Dog and Alan's cataclysmic battle raged into the emergency ward, the found helpless patients, many on crutches suddenly trapped between them. Both men burned with bloodlust and hate to slay each other; [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming yet the cop and the gangster nodded at each other with brotherly understanding, lowered their weapons, and told the patients to quickly run before they would resume their duel]].