History YMMV / HardBoiled

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Downplayed. Creator/JohnWoo's stylized action has fallen out of favor today thanks to [[FollowTheLeader imitators]] and audience demand for more believable action scenes. Despite this, the film is still well regarded due to its practical effects and sheer scale - and quality - of its action choreography. It also helps that there's some surprisingly strong writing and characterization behind the over-the-top gunplay.

* MagnificentBastard: [[NobleTopEnforcer Mad Dog]] is the enforcer of Johnny Wong and the [[HyperCompetentSidekick real mastermind]] behind his boss's rise to power. An intelligent and ruthless man, Mad Dog orchestrates the coup against Uncle Hoi and is able to deceive the cops to get near and murder the informant Foxy. Planning to use the hospital as a staging ground for the final battle, Mad Dog plans to let the hostages go but is horrified when Johnny Wong plans to murder them all. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Disgusted as his boss's lack of honor]], Mad Dog finally turns on his employer and only fails to kill him due to running out of bullets.

** Foxy, Tequilla's informant, dreams of going straight and making his mother proud. [[spoiler: sadly Johnny Wong and Mad Dog get in his way.]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The film features every single police officer character as unambiguously heroic, as an apology by Creator/JohnWoo for the way Chinese films had started to glorify criminals (including some of Woo's previous films). Their conduct in the hospital sequence in particular puts an extra helping of "Heroic" in HeroicBloodshed.

* HilariousInHindsight: Creator/TonyLeung and Creator/AnthonyWong [[Film/InfernalAffairs in a movie about going undercover in the Triads]].

** Creator/TonyLeung is good at playing the Woobie, and his character Alan is no exception. Torn between a quite likeable crime boss, a horrible arms dealer, and his own fellow cops, it's not hard to feel for the poor guy.

* TheWoobie: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is good at playing the Woobie, and his character Alan is no exception. Torn between a quite likeable crime boss, a horrible arms dealer, and his own fellow cops, it's not hard to feel for the poor guy.

%%* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: in which a dozen or so bad guys die but come on, that baby is ''adorable''.
* 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.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Creator/JohnWoo had previously been criticized for glamorizing gangsters in his films, so he decided to make this film glamorizing the police.