Line #15 Film/HardBoiled


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7
8	->''"Give a guy a gun and he's Superman. Give him two and he's God!"''
9	-->-- '''Superintendant Pang''', on Tequila and his "[[GunsAkimbo attitude]]" with firearms
10
11	''Hard Boiled'' (''Lat Sau San Taam'' (辣手神探), or "Dangerous Detective") is a critically-acclaimed action film by Creator/JohnWoo, starring Creator/ChowYunFat in his slightly younger years. This 1992 [[ActionGenre action]] classic has aged very gracefully, and boasts action very few contemporary films can match up to. Has a sequel in the form of a game called ''VideoGame/{{Stranglehold}}'', also produced by Woo.
12
13	''Hard Boiled'' is all about two cops -- one undercover, another much-maligned for always, always playing the Bad Cop -- working together to bring down a gunrunning ring (led by Creator/AnthonyWong). There is plenty of plot in between which establishes the characters of Tequila (the Bad Cop) and Alan (the undercover cop, played by Creator/TonyLeungChiuWai) nicely.
14
15	But what you're here for are the action scenes, intricately choreographed and masterfully done by John Woo. What ''[[{{Film/ShootEmUp}} Shoot 'Em Up]]'' played for humor, ''Hard Boiled'' plays absolutely straight - and both movies end up totally awesome (for different reasons).
16
17	----
18	!!This film provides examples of:
19	* AbandonedWarehouse: The film has a big two-part shootout in one of these things. The first part has the bad guys led by Johnny Wong shooting up the place because they're taking over the gunrunning operation being run within from Uncle Hoi. The second part has Tequila rappelling in and blowing away the bad guys as only Creator/ChowYunFat can.
20	* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Tequila sometimes goes to the jazz club to talk about his troubles with the [[CreatorCameo owner]] and have a drink.
21	* ActionPrologue: The opening teahouse scene.
22	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: When Johnny is driving Alan to the showdown with Uncle Hoi, he takes out a gun to give to Alan, and tells Alan to kill him if he's going to back out. Alan demurs, saying, "I have my own (gun)," which makes Johnny chuckle.
23	* AffablyEvil: Uncle Hoi behaves with a grandfatherly demeanor towards his men, but he's still the leader of a gun-smuggling ring, until Johnny Wong takes over.
24	* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:Alan's fate. Did he die after shooting himself in the gut, during the final confrontation? The last scene with Alan shows him sailing away on his boat; it could be interpreted as his survival, or it could be Tequila's ImagineSpot, that with Alan's death, he is now symbolically "free".]] Unfortunately the movie doesn't explain beyond that point.
25	* AntiVillain: Despite his name, Mad Dog is notable for being a NobleDemon. He only kills other criminals and the police, but [[EvenEvilHasStandards draws a clear line]] [[NeverHurtAnInnocent at murdering the innocent]]. [[spoiler:When Johnny Wong guns down a horde of patients during the climax, Mad Dog even goes so far as to turn on his boss for crossing such a line.]]
26	* ArtisticLicenseLaw: While undercover cops have some leeway to commit crimes in order to maintain their covers, major felonies are generally not permitted. No real undercover cop would ever be permitted to rack up a double-digit body count the way Alan does.
27	** The implication seems to be that Pang just flat-out doesn't care so long as bad guys get theirs. Which might explain why [[invoked]][[FridgeBrilliance Tequila still has a job]] despite his MO being [[CowboyCop shooting first and asking questions never]].
28	* AssassinOutclassin: Some of Hoi's remaining henchmen attempt to kill Alan on his boat, but he and Tequila manage to fend them off.
29	* AuthorAppeal: Creator/JohnWoo's finally gets to show his love for jazz, after ExecutiveMeddling forced him to abort his attempts to show it in his [[Film/TheKiller1989 earlier films]].
30	* AxCrazy: Johnny Wong during the finale, as he kills both cops and hospital patients indiscriminately. Ironically, his [[TheDragon Dragon]], nicknamed '''Mad Dog''', is instead a NobleDemon.
31	* BadassAdorable: When he's not shooting criminals in varying degrees of cold blood, Tequila is frankly a bit of a dork. His attempts to woo Teresa have a distinct "schoolboy and a princess" vibe to them.
32	* BadassAndBaby: One of the movie's most iconic moments is Tequila protecting a baby while blasting up bad guys during the finale of the hospital shootout.
33	* BadassBiker: The raid on the warehouse is spearheaded by a motorcycle light cavalry squad.
34	* BannisterSlide: Tequila does a bannister slide of his own with GunsAkimbo in a classic shot from the first shootout.
35	* TheBartender: Creator/JohnWoo plays one who gives Tequila advice. He mentions at one point that he also was a cop.
36	* BashBrothers: Tequila and Alan, after spending most of the film quarreling and trying to determine which side the other is on, finally work together closely when Mad Dog takes a hospital hostage, blasting their way through bad guys like old comrades.
37	* BigBad: Johnny Wong.
38	* 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 a ruthless gun smuggler and his gang who have absolutely no qualms about murdering everyone who stands in their way.
39	* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: Mad Dog does this to Johnny Wong to stop him killing innocent patients.
40	* BodybagTrick: Tequila and Alan are able to enter a morgue by way of Tequila disguising himself as a doctor and wheeling in Alan (covered by a sheet) on a gurney.
41	* BookSafe: A book of Shakespeare with a gun in it is hidden within a Library. Alan walks into the library, gets the book and kills his target. Then he replaces the gun and book on the library shelf and walks out. This was apparently done so the hitman would never be armed if he was caught, but the police find the book because of the blood on it.
42	* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:Johnny Wong gets one of these by way of MoeGreeneSpecial.]]
43	* BottomlessMagazines: Played straight in many scenes. During the teahouse gunfight, Tequila never reloads despite using the same two pistols for the entire sequence and fires something like 100 shots with them (though part of this is due to multiple uses of the RepeatCut. However, this is averted on occasion, such as the warehouse gunfight and the hospital shootout where characters are seen reloading.
44	* BurnBabyBurn: The police do this with the ID papers of cops who die in the line of duty (such as Tequila's partner from the opening shootout and [[spoiler:Alan at the end of the movie)]].
45	* TheCameo: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jun_Kunimura Jun Kunimura]] has a "Special Guest Appearence" as the teahouse gunman.
46	* CarFu: One poor mook ends up eating bike during the first half of the big warehouse shootout. Ouch.
47	* TheCavalry: The SDU team, once they're able to get inside the hospital. Downplayed as they too suffer casualties of their own.
48	* CeilingCling: Mad Dog does this briefly, in order to get the drop on Alan and Tequila.
49	* ChekhovsGun: The cigarette lighter that Inspector Wang gives Alan is used to save Foxy.
50	* ChekhovsSkill: Tequila takes a long aim at a hole in a pipe stuffed with gunpowder, then drops his arm and shakes it loose...only to fire a moment later. [[spoiler: He later does the same thing to Johnny.]]
51	* ClifftopCaterwauling: After the warehouse shootout, Alan, who has just had to gun down his boss, join Johnny Wong and take on fellow cop Tequila, lets loose with a scream to the heavens while aboard his yacht.
52	* ConflictingLoyalty: Alan has to deal with this, both due to having to choose between Johnny Wong and his old triad boss, and also being an undercover cop as well.
53	* CouldntFindALighter: Mad Dog lights his cigarette from a fire in Uncle Hoi's warehouse after he and the rest of Johnny's gang kill everyone there.
54	* CoversAlwaysLie: The film's iconic poster (and most of it's DVD covers) depicts Tequila holding a baby while clad in SWAT gear, but for the entirety of the climatic shootout, right up to the baby scene, Tequila is in a casual long coat. The hero ''does'' don a set of SWAT armor halfway into the film, but that's during a warehouse raid with nary a baby in sight.
55	* CowboyCop: Tequila. Full stop.
56	* CreatorCameo: Creator/JohnWoo has a small role as Tequila's mentor, also the bartender in Tequila's favorite club.
57	* CrooksAreBetterArmed: Near the end of the movie, the cops surround the hospital used by Johnny Wong as a front for his gun smuggling operations. Naturally, the criminals break out their armaments and tear into the cops laying siege to the hospital.
58	* CruelToBeKind: After Foxy's cover is blown and he is nearly beaten to death, another undercover agent Alan seemingly does ShootTheShaggyDog. It's actually a trick to convince the thugs that he has been killed by first slipping a metal lighter into his chest pocket while punching him in the gut and then using Improbable Aiming Skills to shoot exactly at it (breaking a few more ribs). It's cruel, but Foxy survives. [[spoiler:but not for long]].
59	* CulturedBadass: When Tequila isn't gunning down hordes of bad guys, GunsAkimbo, he's playing clarinet at his local jazz bar.
60	* DaChief: Superintendent Pang.
61	* DeadMansTriggerFinger: Displayed by some of the ''dozens'' of mooks gunned down.
62	* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Johnny Wong mocks the police officers' .38-caliber service revolvers when telling his men to shoot them. In the end, however, he's killed with a .38 to the eye from a service revolver.]]
63	* DestroyTheSecurityCamera: Right before breaking out of Johnny's weapons vault, the first thing Tequila Yuen did to intimidate Johnny is to blast the security camera in the vault with his shotgun. In a later scene, the infamous [[TheOner long take]] shootout against Johnny's men, Tequila shoots another security camera after shooting a mook, this time via silenced pistol.
64	* DieHardOnAnX: The third act of the movie can be best described as "Die Hard in a Hospital."
65	* TheDragon: Mad Dog, who does most of the heavily lifting for Johnny Wong.
66	* DramaticAmmoDepletion:
67	** Early on, Inspector Yuen runs out of bullets just as he tries to shoot the mob hitman Alan. This proves to be very convenient later when he discovers that Alan has actually been an undercover cop all along.
68	** Mad Dog shoots Johnny in the side with what turns out to be his final bullet. Johnny then kills him.
69	* DrinkBasedCharacterization: Tequila has his nickname because he prefers to drink Tequila Slammers, which are made by pouring equal parts tequila and soda into a shot glass, placing one's hand over the glass and then slamming it on top of the bar in order to mix it before drinking. It's violent and slapdash - which fits him perfectly, on top of tequila being the stereotypical order of gunslingers... also like Tequila.
70	* {{Dubtitle}}: The Winstar and Dragon Dynasty home video releases. Reports vary whether the Criterion edition has real subtitles, but generally the consensus is no.
71	* EstablishingCharacterMusic: Both main characters in introduced with jazz. Tequila plays a light song with a band on his clarinet, while Alan is introduced with a funkier song blaring as he drives a sports car.
72	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Mad Dog, who has a strong sense of honor. He calls out Alan on the fact he's a mole for the police ''and'' is gunning for his boss. In the end, [[spoiler:he attempts to kill Johnny Wong when he kills a group of civilians Mad Dog spared.]]
73	-->There are two kinds of men I will never befriend; Cops and garbage who murder their own bosses. ''You have no sense of honor!''
74	* EveryCarIsAPinto: Tequila blows up several motorcycles with what appear to be explosive shells from his shotgun during the big warehouse shootout.
75	* EyeScream:
76	** [[spoiler:Johnny Wong's death at the end of Tequila's gun. The climax of a series of SerialEscalation.]]
77	** Mad Dog has an eye injured at some point (apparently during the warehouse shootout) and gets an eye patch for the rest of the movie. Alan takes advantage of this injury later on by elbowing him there.
78	** Creator/TonyLeungChiuWai's eye was injured by explosion debris during the climax, with the shot of it happening remaining in the film.
79	* EyepatchOfPower: Mad Dog, again.
80	* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:Uncle Hoi in the warehouse shootout. Also, Mad Dog]].
81	* FatalFamilyPhoto: We all know Tequila's partner is not gonna last long when he asks Tequila if he wants to see his son's photo.
82	* FauxAffablyEvil: Johnny Wong can pretend to be affable at times, like when he praises Alan for killing Hoi. It does nothing to lessen how much of a monster he is.
83	* FireAlarmDistraction: When the villains, a gunrunning syndicate, is revealed to have hidden their weapons stash in the basement of a hospital and is ready to blow up the entire building, patients and all, to throw the police off their tracks, the police team who uncovered their plans managed to force an evacuation as one of the officers, Teresa, sets off the fire alarm on purpose by smashing it with her heels.
84	* FriendToAllChildren: Tequila holds a baby in one arm and sings a lullaby to him while gunning down incoming Mooks with his other arm.
85	* GoryDiscretionShot:
86	** While at the hospital, [[spoiler:Mad Dog uses a scalpel to kill Foxy. Just as 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.]]
87	** At the end of the teahouse shootout, when Tequila dispatches his partner's killer, we only see his face sprayed with blood.
88	* GratuitousEnglish: Serves as an aid in decoding the cryptic messages left by Alan. Also used by several characters throughout the film, such as singing English lyrics or shouting angry words. This is TruthInTelevision, as Hong Kong's primary languages are Cantonese and English.
89	* GunFu: WordOfGod has described the gunfights as "gun ballet."
90	* GunPorn: Wong's arsenal [[spoiler:hidden in a hospital]] is [[{{Pun}} loaded]] with more guns than the Army.
91	* GunsAkimbo: See the page quote, played straight with awesomeness.
92	* HandCannon: One of the guns that sees use in this movie is a single-shot Thompson/Center Contender, wielded by Mad Dog against Tequila and Tony.
93	* HardBoiledDetective: Tequila is Creator/JohnWoo's take on the character, and as such racks up a ''significantly'' higher bodycount than most of the type. He's even referred to as one by Johnny Wong during the climax.
94	-->'''Johnny:''' So it's you, the hard-boiled cop.
95	* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler:Mad Dog gets pissed after Johnny guns down a group of injured patients, solely because they were in the way of Tony - patients Mad Dog refused to shoot to get to Tony. He tries shooting Johnny, but it's blocked by his shotgun, and he runs dry - and Johnny unloads on him, point-blank]].
96	* HeroicBloodshed: A notable example of the genre. [[LampshadeHanging Name-dropped in the climax]], as Tequila talks to the kid he's protecting.
97	* HeroicBSOD: Averted; Tequila talks Tony out of falling into one of these after realizing he may have shot a fellow cop. It leads to a hilarious exchange.
98	-->'''Alan:''' Was the guy I shot really a cop?\
99	'''Tequila:''' Yes.\
100	'''Alan:''' ''Fuck!'' [unloads on the mook coming at them]
101	* HeroicSacrifice:
102	** Near the end of the hospital battle, two of the SDU team officers charged with getting the newborns safely out of the building use their kevlar vests to protect the babies. Immediately after securing the infants inside of the vests, they're riddled with bullets that they might otherwise have survived.
103	** [[spoiler:Alan gives Tequila a chance to kill Johnny Wong by shooting both himself and Johnny through the gut, stunning Johnny long enough for Tequila to make a headshot.]]
104	* HonorBeforeReason: The cops, naturally. And quite surprisingly, even TheDragon of Johnny Wong.
105	* HopeSpot: When Alan and Mad Dog goes into a standoff that had numerous civilians stuck between them, they decide to put down their guns and let the innocents leave before they fight themselves. [[spoiler:Then Johnny Wong rushed in with his goons, personally gunning down all the civilians to reach Alan.]]
106	* HouseboatHero: Alan lives on a yacht (which ends up the site of one of the film's gunfight set pieces). [[spoiler:The film ends with him sailing away after his "death"]].
107	* IdiotBall: [[spoiler:Foxy's death]] could have been avoided altogether if [[spoiler:Tequilla didn't have a brainfart and take him to a hospital owned by Johnny Wong.]] All the more jarring because everyone seems to treat it as a tragic happenstance, and the heroes are pretty sensible otherwise.
108	* ImprobableAimingSkills:
109	** Near the end of the movie, Tequila places several rounds of gunpowder into a metal pipe, with a bullet covering the entrance. He fires a shot from at least seven feet away, one-handed, and hits the bullet, blowing the gunpowder in the pipe. This description in no way reflects how awesome and impossible that is. He later uses this skill to [[spoiler:finally take out Johnny Wong with a MoeGreeneSpecial]].
110	** When Alan is ordered by Johnny to shoot the informant, Foxy, he is careful to shoot the cigarette lighter in Foxy's shirt pocket, minimizing the damage.
111	* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Invoked. During the climax, Tequila has to evacuate the maternity ward. He goes to great lengths to make sure the babies get out alive. ''All'' of the babies in the hospital make it out okay.
112	* IronicNickname: Strangely enough, Mad Dog. You'd expect someone with a name like that to be a senselessly violent AxCrazy maniac, but he's more of a NobleDemon with strong qualms about hurting innocent people.
113	* KidAmidTheChaos: A major plot point of the second half of the movie involves evacuating the babies of a hospital's maternity ward and getting them to safety once the patients that didn't get killed by the bad guys are evacuated. Teresa Chang, who played a major role in the evacuation of the patients, is placed in charge of getting the kids out of there with the help of the SDU team, with the bad guys trying to stop them every step of the way. [[spoiler:Eventually, every one of the babies are evacuated, but there's just one more baby that she missed, which she charges Tequila himself with the task of saving.]]
114	* IKnowYoureWatchingMe: Tequila and Alan raids Johnny Wong's armory of supplies, knowing full well that Johnny can see them. As a "screw you", Tequila then blasts one of Wong's surveillance cameras before leaving.
115	* LancerVsDragon: One of the many action set-pieces in the climatic hospital shootout, which have Tequila's lancer Alan battling Johnny Wong's dragon, Mad Dog, culminating in both lancer and dragon having their guns pointed at each other... and a dozen unarmed civilians caught in-between.
116	* LetsYouAndHimFight: Tequila and Alan. This is a very, very straight example.
117	* LittleUselessGun: Johnny Wong mocks the police's .38 special revolvers for this trope. Ironically [[spoiler:Johnny is killed by Tequila at the end of the movie with [[MoeGreeneSpecial a well placed shot to the eye]] using the very weapon Johnny mocked]].
118	* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard: Yeah, locking the heroes ''inside'' your arsenal is going to end well.
119	* MadeOfIron: Another Creator/JohnWoo staple. Mad Dog loses or has an eye severely injured, and at one point suffers Tequila repeatedly punching it, apparently with no adverse effects. In the final shootout the characters take damage which would render normal people paralytic, instantly dead, or at least incapable of serious action, yet they never stop.
120	** Alan ends up getting a back full of buckshot after an assassin gets the drop on him with a shotgun. The worst this does for him is make him stumble twice, but he's soon running around shooting his attackers and keeping up with the uninjured Tequila. Though later in the scene it ends up catching up with him and he ends up in the hospital, but he's still upright and conscious. Not bad, considering that this sort of thing would normally kill a person in most action films, never mind real life.
121	* MenOfSherwood: The SDU team during the hospital shoot-out definitely qualifies.
122	* MexicanStandoff: Between Tequila and Alan at the warehouse. [[spoiler:The latter's refusal to shoot Tequila is his first clue that he's actually an undercover cop. Also, his name is Tony.]]
123	* MistakenlyAttackedMole: Inspector Yuen tries to kill a high profile mob hitman, Alan, but runs out of bullets, and only later learns from his superiors that Alan is actually an undercover cop himself.
124	* MoeGreeneSpecial: [[spoiler:Johnny Wong's death, courtesy of Tequila.]]
125	* MoreDakka: While played relatively straight with everyone else, it is allegedly averted by Tequila who we are informed "never wastes a slug."
126	* NeverHurtAnInnocent:
127	-->'''[[NobleDemon Mad Dog:]]''' Boss, let's set the patients free.\
128	'''Johnny:''' Oh, why do you care about what happens to them?\
129	'''Mad Dog:''' [[EvenEvilHasStandards It's the decent and honorable thing to do.]]\
130	'''Johnny:''' [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney I'll run this show MY FUCKING WAY, thank you!]]
131	** When Mad Dog's fight with Tony takes them into an emergency ward full of innocent hospital patients, they both hold off on the fight long enough to shoo out the bystanders so they won't get hurt. [[spoiler:Then Johnny comes in and shoots the patients anyway, triggering Mad Dog's short-lived HeelFaceTurn.]]
132	* 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 Alan]].
133	* NobleTopEnforcer: Mad Dog is clearly a much better man than his boss Johnny Wong; he will '''not''' tolerate the harming or killing of innocents, a sentiment not shared by Johnny when trying to shoot past them to hit the heroes.....
134	* NonIndicativeName: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] with Mad Dog; on one hand, he's very discerning about [[NeverHurtAnInnocent his targets]] and has a very strict set of standards. On the other hand, when he's doing his job, he's absolutely ''vicious''.
135	* TheOner: The hospital's elevator scene. It's probably the most spectacular moment in the film.
136	* OutOfTheInferno: In the end, [[spoiler:Johnny Wong walks out of his self-inflicted inferno, hauling Tony in tow.]]
137	* OutrunTheFireball: Tequila does this at the climax. Interestingly, there was a [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20363_6-classic-movies-made-possible-by-reckless-endangerment.html 'screw up' with the pyrotechnics]] that caused a bigger explosion than planned, meaning that Chow Yun Fat was [[EnforcedMethodActing really running for his life]].
138	* PinPullingTeeth: At one point during the raid, Mad Dog pulls ''two'' pins in a row from a pair of grenades, before tossing both into a cubicle containing a few unfortunate mooks.
139	* PocketProtector: Alan slips a cigarette lighter into Foxy's pocket and shoots it, thus saving his life.
140	* PottyFailure: The baby Tequila was carrying before escaping the hospital urinated on his pant leg. Luckily it doused the fire which ignited on Tequila's pants.
141	* PragmaticVillainy: when one of Johnny's men questions whether they can trust Alan he replies surprisingly reasonably, pointing out they can't be sure but it's a gamble they have to take;
142	-->'''Johnny:''' Got to risk it, Frankie needs replacing and life's about taking chances
143	* RatedMForManly: ''Is this film ever''.
144	* RedBaron: Mad Dog.
145	* RedOniBlueOni: Inspector Tequila and Alan, as well as Johnny Wong and Mad Dog.
146	* RedShirtArmy: Played straight with the cops at the teahouse, but refreshingly averted with the SDU team at the hospital. Once our heroes are able to create enough of a disturbance inside for these guys to be able to break through, they're ''very'' effective.
147	* RevolversAreJustBetter: Played With, Johnny Wong claims that his men are at an advantage since the police mainly use .38 caliber revolvers, though the police do put up a good fight against him and his men. [[spoiler:In fact Johnny Wong is killed by a single shot from a .38 during the climax.]]
148	* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Discussed and wiggled around when Alan is in the process of selling out Uncle Hoi to Johnny Wong. He insists to Wong that he's not a traitor and will be loyal to Chiu until Chiu is dead, and then helps to make that the case. Wong is entirely okay with this and keeps Alan around, but Mad Dog, who personally hates double-crossers, is unimpressed with the treason and harbors a special hatred for Alan.
149	%%* RuleOfCool
150	* SacrificialLamb: Benny, Tequila's partner in the beginning, which drives Tequila's revenge plot. Later, the nameless cop [[spoiler:Tony accidentally shoots.]]
151	* SerialEscalation: If ''Film/TheKiller1989'' took Creator/JohnWoo's trademark action tropes up to 11, then ''Hard Boiled'' took them [[MemeticMutation Over 9000.]]
152	* ShootTheHostage: A rare instance where it was invoked by the hostage. [[spoiler:Alan pulled Johnny's gun to his stomach, which made Johnny shoot him. This gave Tequila the opportunity the gun down Johnny.]]
153	* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Tequila's shotgun obliterates entire hallways worth of mooks and rarely seems to need reloading.
154	* ShoutOut:
155	** See ''Film/InfernalAffairs'' after watching ''Hard Boiled'' or vice versa. Notice something upon viewing? Hear that shouting?
156	** Tequila carrying a baby during the climax is a reference to the famous story of the ancient Chinese general Zhao Yun saving the infant son of his lord Liu Bei during the Battle of Chang-Ban. Woo later got to tell the original story in ''Film/RedCliff''.
157	** Using the shotgun in the rose box was an original idea in both this film and ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay''. Both were homages to ''Film/TheKilling'' and ''Film/DogDayAfternoon''.
158	** The hit in the library was likely a tribute to the restaurant hit in ''Film/TheGodfather'' -- the killer uses a gun hidden on the premises to shoot someone in the head.
159	** ''Film/TheWildBunch'' served as an inspiration in various ways, including the beat where Pike Bishop drinks an entire bottle of tequila — hence the lead character here named Tequila.
160	* SickbedSlaying: Foxy's death is similar, only he is not unconscious but rather, in a plaster cast from tip to toe, which only makes the murder (with a scalpel) crueller.
161	* SidingWithTheSuffering: Mad Dog tries to persuade Johnny to let the patients go, as his fight is with the police, but Johnny refuses. Mad Dog turns on his boss when he needlessly murders a group of patients while trying to kill Alan and gets killed for his trouble.
162	* SkywardScream: Alan, when on his sailboat sometime after the warehouse shootout.
163	* SmokeAndFireFactory: The warehouse is a blatant example.
164	* TheSociopath: Johnny Wong has no regard for anyone but himself.
165	* StrawNihilist: Johnny Wong makes no secret of how he views human life to be completely meaningless [[spoiler:he has no problem killing a group of innocent doctors and patients, something [[TheDragon Mad Dog]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards finds disgusting.]]]]
166	* StuffBlowingUp: IN SPADES.
167	* SympathyForTheDevil: Tequila and Alan.
168	* TheSyndicate: Johnny Wong and his goons are part of this.
169	* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Mad Dog. With PinPullingTeeth, too. Tequila also makes use of a smoke grenade during his solo raid on the warehouse.
170	* TitleDrop: "So it's you. The hard-boiled cop."
171	* ToneShift: While ''The Killer'' had [[DarkerAndEdgier a darker and more serious tone]], ''Hard Boiled'' has [[LighterAndSofter a more fun and over the top tone]].
172	* TooDumbToLive: A nameless Triad thug shoots two SDU officers in the climactic hospital battle, killing one of them. As he goes to finish off the other, Teresa Chang snatches up a pistol and holds it on him. Possibly believing that she was merely a trapped civilian (she was wearing plainclothes) and wouldn't have the nerve to shoot him, the thug slapped her and called her a "fucking bitch!" She promptly shot him about five times in the torso.
173	* TragicBromance: Tequila and Alan. [[spoiler:Subverted as Alan survives, he just leaves Hong Kong for good. [[AmbiguousEnding Maybe]].]]
174	* TrashTheSet: The teahouse that served as the setpiece for the first big shootout of the film had been slated for demolition, and Creator/JohnWoo got permission to use the teahouse for the shootout in question.
175	* TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Mad Dog said that he hates creeps who betray their bosses as much as cops. He said this to Alan, who's been revealed as an undercover cop during the climax. [[spoiler: Ironically, ''he himself'' turns on his boss in the end, once he sees what kind of man Johnny is when he mows down a bunch of patients just because they're in the way.]]
176	* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: The Triads are the villains.
177	* UnfriendlyFire: At the end of the first teahouse shootout, Tequila guns down one of the Triads, who unbeknownst to him, was an undercover cop. Alan also unintentionally kills a cop in the hospital shootout, causing a brief HeroicBSOD.
178	* UnnecessaryCombatRoll: Tony is fond of these.
179	* VillainousValor: Mad Dog, again. He's absolutely disgusted with Tony's betrayal -- and even more disgusted with the fact his boss and his goons gun down innocent civilians.
180	* WalkingArmory: The bad guys in the teahouse shoot-out.
181	* WaxingLyrical: Tony sends coded messages to the police by sending flowers to Teresa (Teresa Mo), a police secretary and Tequila's on-again, off-again girlfriend, with the message on the card. Before it's decoded, the message on the first card reads, "Are you somewhere feeling lonely/Or is someone loving you?", which is a lyric from Music/LionelRichie's "Hello". They're all from well-known love songs.

Context Film / HardBoiled