Along with THE KILLER, HARD BOILED is probably one of the movies that has launched a new interest into the whole Hong Kong movie scene. If you are unfamiliar with Hong Kong movies, HARD BOILED is a roller coaster ride. The movie features Chow Yun-Fat as Tequila, the baddest badass cop going. He teams up with Tony Leung, an undercover cop working as a triad, to stop a madman crime boss, portrayed by Anthony Wong. John Woo's action direction is magnificent. To borrow a little from the commentary on the Criterion DVD, this movie contains a scene that could be any other movie's climax every 10 minutes.

To get the full affect of this movie it needs to be seen in a packed theater. I was fortunate enough to catch this in New York City years ago as a double feature with CITY ON FIRE. The crowd behaved like they were watching a live show. Normally I prefer a quiet theater but this was such an exception. If you've seen this before, you are familiar with Tequila mowing down bad guys while sliding down railing of the tea house. In the theater, there was such applause.

Okay, so great, it nice to see this in the theater. What about at home? For region 1, there are four versions of HARD BOILED on DVD. The Criterion release was the first released, and the first to go out of print. The second version is from Mei Ah, it doesn't have much going for it. After that came the WInstar release. All of these are out of print. This brings us to the remastered Mei Ah DVD, which is reviewed here.

If you don't have this on DVD or have been waiting for an anamorphic version, the remastered Mei Ah DVD is the way to go. It's not perfect but probably the best there is at the moment. If you have the Criterion and Winstar DVD's, hold on to them because they have extras that are good to have.. If you live in the US and don't have a region free player, the remastered Mei Ah is the only option. Buena Vista has the rights to this movie and there is little chance it will get released uncut and in its original language. If you speak French, there is a Region 2 HKVIDEO DVD which is supposed to be great. It hasno English subtitles.

Hard Boiled (1992)
Director - John Woo
DVD Released by : Winstar
Player reviewed with : Sony S3000
Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925
Features:
Menu
Trailer
Cantonese and English Soundtracks
Mono
Filmographies
Commentary with John Woo and Terence Chang
Running Time : 126 mins
DVD Released by : Mei Ah
Player reviewed with : Sony S3000
Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925
Features:
Menu
Trailer
Cantonese and Mandarin Soundtracks
Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital 5.1
English and Chinese Subtitles
Running Time : 127 mins
DVD Released by : The Criterion Collection
Player reviewed with : Sony S3000
Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925
Features:
Commentary by director John Woo and production executive Terence Cheng, filmmaker Roger Avery, and critic Dave Kehr
Trailers for 11 of Woo's films
A student film by Woo
English Subtitles and dubbed track
Guide to Hong Kong crime films
Running Time : 126 mins

Criterion
First, there's the Criterion version. Everything about this DVD is well done. The picture is very good and the colors are very rich looking. Although good, the picture is darker than the Criterion laser disc. You may need to adjust your brightness on your television just a bit. Like THE KILLER, this is from the same source as the laser disc as there are some teeny little imperfections in the film that happen in the same places on both. Overall the picture is very good on a 27 inch TV.

The sound is monaural and is mixed well. The track was mastered from the original 3-track master. I generally watch a movie with the original language soundtrack but I did watch this with the dubbed English track. The dubbing isn't too bad if you like dubs. The voices sometimes make Tequila sound like John Wayne. The good side of this is that you could show this movie with the English dub to people who hate subtitles and stereotype every Hong Kong movie as having bad dubbing and they probably wouldn't know it was dubbed.

Criterion
The audio commentary is interesting and it is great to hear Woo and Chang talk about the movie. I have mixed feelings about Avery and Kehr being on the commentary. That would be like my friends and I being recorded as we watched the DVD. These people have nothing to do with the movie. What they say is intelligent but it doesn't add any insight. I prefer the commentaries to be by people who had something to do with the film.

The other extras are great to have. Watching the trailers to Woo's other movies makes you wish Criterion would put out versions of them.

The student film by Woo is nice to have just to see another side of him. The Guide to Hong Kong crime films is an interesting read but if you are a Woo fan you probably know it all already.

This DVD is definitely a must have if you want the extras. The transfer is much darker than the other versions, though. Being out of print, the only place you will likely find this one is Ebay.

Mei Ah
The Mei Ah version of HARD BOILED has little going for it. The big down side of this DVD is that you need to flip it over. If that is not bad enough, you have to watch the copyright warning and go through the menu again to continue. I know I had to flip over the laser disc but I didn't have to sit through the warning and menu again.

The picture quality is barely fair. The overall image is very bright and washed out looking. The picture also jumps occasionally. This can be distracting after a while. It's hard to tell from the screen shots, but there is sometimes a haze over the picture. The print that was used was
definitely not in the best shape.

Mei Ah
The sound options give you the choice between Dolby Digital and the 5.1 remix. I watched it without the re-mix first. The sound was acceptable. The 5.1 remix on the other hand sounded very hollow.

I watched the movie in Cantonese with the English subtitles. The subtitles were mostly in sync with what was said. The translations were pretty on the mark.

I can honestly say that one could pass on this version of the movie. This has absolutely nothing over the Criterion version or Winstar versions.

The Winstar DVD is the third version of HARD BOILED. How does this version compare with the previous versions? It's miles ahead of the Mei Ah version but don't get rid of your Criterion just yet.

The picture quality is pretty good. It isn't as dark as the Criterion version. Some feel that this transfer is a little too bright but I think it's fine. I actually prefer this to the Criterion transfer. Other than the brightness level, the picture is just about identical on the 27 inch TV.

Winstar

I watched the movie with the commentary track. I noticed that the movie's soundtrack goes out of sync at times with the commentary track on. The commentary is interesting but the other soundtrack going out of sync is annoying. The movie's sound track is mono and sounds fine. The movie was originally mono so I am glad they didn't go crazy with a 5.1 mix. The movie is also dubbed in English.

The subtitles seem a little large but they aren't too bad. They are almost the same as the English dub. They are in yellow and easy to read. One annoying thing is that they appear below the picture on the bottom black bar. If you have a widescreen TV, even zooming you can't fill the screen because you'll cut off the subtitles.

All of these DVD's are out of print. The Criterion still goes for a lot of money. Unless you really want the extras, the new Mei Ah should be fine. For an import DVD, the remastered HARD BOILED is one of the better ones.

Winstar