“Give a man a gun and he’s superman. Give him two and he’s god.”
It’s hard to believe that almost 15 years ago (1992), John Woo’s classic “Hard Boiled” hit the cinema’s and our respective TV screens (If you’ve not seen Hard Boiled, I seriously suggest that you do!)
I remember back in 1995/1996 when I first hired Hard Boiled from a video rental store under the tag line “Better than 10 Die Hards!!” – at that time I remember I only ever rented a movie depending on the number of exclamation points, and whilst Hollywood’s Die Hard clones and the usual Schwarznegger or Stallone feature had one, this movie had two! – So naturally I hired it right there and then.
Back then of course I, like many of my peers, were so into Hong Kong action movies from the ilk of Jackie Chan and to a lesser extent, Jet Li. Naturally, Hard Boiled – much like John Woo’s other movies, literally blew me away. The ballet of action, guns, bullets and Chow Yun Fat’s natural charismatic appeal just won me, and many fans over – and we went on to watch similar films such as “The Killer” (also directed by John Woo) and “God of Gamblers” as well his many Ringo Lam movies.
Although Woo, in my opinion, never recaptured the form of Hard Boiled once he went to America – even with films like Face/Off and the craptacular that was “M:I-2” – I felt that this was mainly because studio executives basically told him to redo “Hard Boiled” over and over again, and thus he lost his competitive edge through constantly rehashing ideas from the early 90s – and of course, nearly ever Woo movie had the same repeating of flying pigeons, or in some cases; doves. But this only de-credits what Woo has done for action, and what Chow Yun Fat has done for acting.
Now almost a decade and a half later Chow Yun Fat reprises the role of “Inspector Tequila” from John Woo’s influential action film, and you get to play him in the action game “Strangehold”
Much like “Max Payne”, “Strangehold” is a hyper-kinetic shooting game, complete with “Tequila Time” and features much of the hyper-kinetic, choreographed action and freeze framed sequences that Woo is known for.
The game looks great, all out action much like Max Payne; There are tons of trailers which are below – I only wonder though if the haunting music from the Hard Boiled Trailer will make the game – I sure hope so!
“Strangehold” Preview Trailers, and Resources;