Trivia / Hard Boiled Movie

• Banned in China: Due to its brutal and over-the-top violence, the film was banned from commercial distribution in Finland shortly after its 1993 film festival premiere. The ban was lifted in 2001 when the classification system was reformed.
• Cast the Expert: Philip Chan, who played Superintendant Pang, was a CID cop in the '70s and for a while was the head of one of the first undercover units of the Hong Kong Police.
• Completely Different Title: The native title for the film is Lashou Shentan ("Ruthless Super-Cop").
• Creator Backlash: Anthony Wong wasn't happy with the film as he thought that his character, Johnny Wong, was a two-dimensional and thinly characterized villain. He also considered John Woo hard to work with.
• The Danza: Anthony Wong plays Johnny Wong, the film's villain.
• Deleted Scene: Around a half-hour of scenes were cut during filming, among them were a relationship sub-plot between Teresa and Tequila, of which there's a few bits left over in the final film, and Tequila playing the clarinet over Benny's grave. Due to these cuts, Chow Yun-fat felt his character was not as deep as Tony Leung Chiu-wai's, and convinced Woo to play a mentor character to Tequila.
• Enforced Method Acting: During the filming of the scene in which Tequila is running down the exploding hallway with the baby, John Woo wasn't satisfied that the explosions were big and frightening enough in the scene. According to Woo in his Dragon Dynasty DVD interview, he asked the special effects technicians to reset the explosives and give him the trigger. When Chow Yun-fat ran down the hall, Woo immediately set the explosives off, nearly incinerating Chow, who barely made it. According to Woo, Yun-Fat Chow exclaimed to the producer afterwards "John's trying to kill me! John's trying to kill me!". When Woo heard Chow screaming, he went up to apologize to Chow and saw that the back of his head and coat were in fact singed from the explosions.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The pier where Foxy gets his beat-down is the same one where the botched undercover gun buy took place in The Killer (1989).
• Looping Lines: All the characters had their voices dubbed by their own actors in order to save money. John Woo stated this was convenient as he did not have to worry about setting up boom mics and other sound elements.
• On-Set Injury: During the hallway shoot-out, Tony Leung Chiu-wai was cut in the eye by a shard of glass. If you pay attention, Leung suddenly covers his face with his arm, an indication of when he was hit with the glass. He was given a day off to get medical attention and returned to the set to finish filming without problems.
• One-Take Wonder: Because of the shooting schedule, the crew only had one chance to perform the continuous take during the gun-battle in the hospital.
• Prop Recycling: The statue of General Kwan in the police station is the same one used in The Killer (1989).
• Spared by the Cut: The ending originally had Tony dying from his self-inflicted Shoot the Hostage gambit, but during filming the cast and crew begged Woo not to end the film on such a bitter and tragic note, and convinced Woo to rewrite the ending.
• Throw It In!:
  • Like many of John Woo's other films, elements of the film's action sequences were improvised, such as the famous "staircase slide" in the teahouse. Chow Yun-fat came up with the idea of using flour in the climax of the teahouse shootout.
  • Originally, Tony was not supposed to cry after killing Mr. Hui, but Tony Leung Chiu-wai felt the character should show some sign of breaking down. Woo filmed the scene both ways and decided to keep the "crying take" in.
• What Could Have Been:
  • John Woo intended for the film to be less stylized and more gritty than his past works, citing the Dirty Harry films as inspiration. Michelle Yeoh was to play Tequila's partner on the force, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai was picked to play the villain, a psychopath poisoning baby formula. Woo was talked out of the idea, and a new plot was written with Leung playing an undercover cop.
  • A number of story elements were improvised during filming and not part of the original script, such as the character of Mad Dog, who came about as Woo felt that Johnny Wong didn't pose enough of a physical threat to the other characters.
  • The warehouse shoot-out was originally supposed to be two set-pieces as the back half was going to take place on a cliff outside the warehouse. Tequila and Alan were meant to have their face-off there, but Woo was unable to find a suitable location. The scene would have seen Tequila almost fall only to be saved by Alan, but the scene instead shifted to Alan declining to shoot Tequila in the head.
  • Woo wanted to bring the entire hospital down during the finale. The crew became worried and asked producer Terence Chang to talk some sense into Woo. Woo agreed to use only 1/4th of the original explosives he requested.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The tea house sequence was shot before the script was written.

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