History Film / BallisticKiss

-> ''It’s so quiet and peaceful; but if you really look at each home, each window, and look inside those ordiniary lives, what do we see? Sons stealing from mothers, wives betraying husbands, the rape of children, women being beaten, anger, sickness and despair… we hide it away and call it innocence. ''

-> ''This is the dark heart of mankind...'' '''NO-ONE IS INNOCENT.''' - '''Cat'''

* AssholeVictim: Invoked when Carrie questions Cat on his multiple murders he committed in the past. Cat’s response?

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Cat has killed Wesley and successfully gotten his revenge, but upon realizing he’s not destined to be with Carrie, rather than surrendering to the police he decides instead to commit SuicideByCop]].

--> '''Wesley''': (rips open his shirt to expose vest) "I’ve got a vest, so fuck you!"

* DanceOfRomance: Cat and Carrie, on a rooftop at dawn, the night after [[spoiler: surviving the Hitman’s assault]].
* DancingWithMyself: Cat in his own apartment, after an assassination. This is before he falls for Carrie and when he’s still a lonely assassin, by the way.

* ElevatorEscape: Holland Wah attempts to get away from Cat in an elevator as his bodyguards tries fending off Cat, but unfortunately for him, Cat blocks the elevator’s closing doors in the last second.
--> '''Cat''': "Leaving so soon? Aren’t you going to wait for me?" (kills Holland Wah)
* FacialRecognitionSoftware: Used to identify the killer at Holland Wah’s club. The machine managed to patch up Cat’s face, but Carrie just misses it.
* FanDisservice: The porno theater shootout. There’s something a bit off about seeing a semi-naked woman on the silver screen, boobs hanging out, intersect with people getting shot. More than once there are mooks gets killed with bloody squibs, in front of a screen showing a naked lady taking up most of the background.
* FingerGun: [[spoiler: A variation in the ending scene; Cat is being led out by Carrie after an intense shootout, but upon seeing the cops gathered outside, he decides to stick his hand inside his coat, prompting the police to open fire on him. Turns out he’s actually reaching out for his glasses]].

* GrievousHarmWithABody: During his first shootout, Cat throws a mook he restrained into another group of mooks, before shooting them all while they’re distracted.
* GunsAkimbo: Cat during his shootouts in the second half of the film, [[spoiler: notably how he took down the Hitman]].
* GratuitousEnglish: Cat and Wesley, in more than one scene, gets to converse with each other in English, to reflect their past while they’re on assignment in New York 6 years earlier.
* HeroicBloodshed: Follows most examples popular at the time, with Cat as a HitmanWithAHeart using GunsAkimbo, loads of GunFu during shootouts, a MexicanStandOff scene, usage of Christian imagery, and a relationship between StarCrossedLovers Cat and Carrie [[spoiler: which is doomed to end badly before the credits]]...
* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies: After killing the last of the bad guys, too…]]

** Cat in his first action scene, while struggling with a thug, pulls said thug by the belt so that bullets meant for him ends up in the thug’s back.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: [[spoiler: Wesley’s final fate, delivered by Cat with a ceiling fan]].

--> '''Wesley''': (past) "Nice song. Marvin Gaye did that song, didn’t he?"
--> '''Cat''': (present) "By the way, I never got those tickets to see Marvin Gaye’s concert. "
--> '''Wesley''': (past) "Its only business…"
--> '''Cat''': (past) "Its personal! "
--> '''Wesley''': (past) "By the time you get out, I’ll be long fucking gone!"
--> '''Cat''': (present) "… you’ll be dead!"

* MexicanStandoff: Between Wesley and his men, against Mr. Tsoi’s mobsters. Ending in a free-for-all shootout with both sides firing blindly upon each other. [[spoiler: Wesley is one of the few survivors of the shootout scene]].
* MookHorrorShow: Whenever Cat goes into a shootout against mooks, the battle will quickly go into Cat’s favor with horrified faceless mooks watching their colleagues getting shot one-by-one before ending up in Cat’s kill-count themselves.

--> '''Cat''': "Time to die!" ([[spoiler: knocks the blades of a dropped ceiling fan into Wesley, impaling him through his midsection to death]])
* PutTheirHeadsTogether: Happens in Cat’s first action scene in the nightclub, while beating up several of Holland Boy’s mooks Cat slams two of their temples into one.

* RecurringExtra: The talkshow host who is an AudienceSurrogate that shows up in more than one scene, usually only with his voice heard whenever a character in the movie turns on the radio. [[spoiler: That character later turns out to be Cat the whole time]].

* RuleOfSymbolism: Christian imagery like churches and crosses do show up multiple times in the movie, notably the [[spoiler: final scene at Cat’s grave]]. Keeping up with the constant theme of Christ symbolism always seen in this type of movies ever since John Woo started the trend.
* ScaryBlackMan: A huge, muscular African-American mobster intimidates Wesley during the MexicanStandoff scene, where two of them gets into a close fistfight before drawing guns at each other. The thug is played by Creator/MichaelWoods, Donnie Yen’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator back in the 90s by the way.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: The Hitman’s preferred weapon is a shotgun. Averted for Cat, who prefers using pistols throughout the movie.

** ''Film/RichAndFamous'' is referenced during Cat and Carrie’s meeting on the bus.
** There is a scaled-sized ornament of an alien from ''Film/IndependenceDay'' in Cat’s gym.
* SmokyGentlemensClub: The first action scene in the movie is set in Holland Boy’s nightclub, frequented by gangsters who smokes throughout their screentime. All 3 minutes of it.

* TearfulSmile: Carrie flashes a smile through tears after realizing [[spoiler: Cat survives his shootout with the Hitman, staggering up the stairs, alive but barely]].

** [[spoiler: The huge, imposing Hitman is finally taken down after getting more than 30 rounds pumped into his body by Cat’s dual pistols]].
** In their final confrontation, Cat and Wesley fires away at each other, respectively with their dual pistols and machine-gun… only for most of the bullets to end up in an unfortunate mook that happens to be standing in between them. It doesn’t help that being desperate to see each other dead, both Cat and Wesley keeps on pulling the trigger, missing each other and soaking up the poor mook’s body with more lead than most war movies.
* TragicKeepsake: [[spoiler: Cat’s glasses, which Carrie keeps in the final scene after he dies. In her final moments as she stood before his grave paying her last respects, Carrie puts Cat’s glasses on herself before walking away]].

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Cat and Wesley used to be… until Wesley’s betrayal which results in Cat being sentenced to 6 years of prison.

* WouldHitAGirl: Wesley and his mooks who slaps and beats the snot out of Carrie’s friend Annie to interrogate her.

--> ''It’s so quiet and peaceful; but if you really look at each home, each window, and look inside those ordiniary lives, what do we see? Sons stealing from mothers, wives betraying husbands, the rape of children, women being beaten, anger, sickness and despair… we hide it away and call it innocence. ''

--> ''This is the dark heart of mankind…'' '''NO-ONE IS INNOCENT.''' - '''Cat'''

* ScaryBlackMan: A huge, muscular African-American mobster intimidates Wesley during the MexicanStandoff scene, where two of them gets into a close fistfight before drawing guns at each other. The thug is played by Michael Woods, Donnie Yen’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator back in the 90s by the way.

* InMediasRes: Then meeting between Cat and Wesley in the office is intersect with a flashback of Wesley betraying Cat in the past back in New York, with both scenes spliced together to make it look like the events are happening concurrently. Even the dialogue in both scenes are repeated, with slight modifications…

* ImplacableMan: The hitman sent by Wesley after Cat and Carrie, played by Yu Rongguang.

''Ballistic Kiss'' is a 1998 Hong Kong movie produced, directed by and starring Donnie Yen.

[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as "[[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=8344&display_set=eng Kill an little, dance a little]]."]]

* GratitousEnglish: Cat and Wesley, in more than one scene, gets to converse with each other in English, to reflect their past while they’re on assignment in New York 6 years earlier.

* The black thug using Lily as a shield during the MexicanStandoff scene that ends in a free-for-all shootout.

* Gratitous English: Cat and Wesley, in more than one scene, gets to converse with each other in English, to reflect their past while they’re on assignment in New York 6 years earlier.

[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as "Kill an little, dance a little."[[note]] [[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=8344&display_set=eng What, do you think I'm kidding?[[/note]]. ]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as "Kill an little, dance a little." [[note]] [[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=8344&display_set=eng What, do you think I'm kidding?[[/note]] ]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as "Kill an little, dance a little." [[note]] [[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=8344&display_set=eng What, do you think I'm kidding? [[/note]] ]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as "Kill some people, dance some dance." No, seriously, that's precisely what the Chinese title says.]]

* MexicanStandoff: Between Wesley and his men, against Mr. Tsoi’s mobsters. Ending in a free-for-all shootout with both sides firing blindly upon each other.

* InMediaRes: Then meeting between Cat and Wesley in the office is intersect with a flashback of Wesley betraying Cat in the past back in New York, with both scenes spliced together to make it look like the events are happening concurrently. Even the dialogue in both scenes are repeated, with slight modifications…

* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies: After killing the last of the bad guys, too…]]

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:

* [[spoiler: TheHeroDies: After killing the last of the bad guys, too…]]

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: