Heroes Shed No Tears is John Woo's first action movie that has guns and is not a martial arts movie. Woo made A Better Tomorrow right after this. Eddie Ko leads a group of Chinese mercenaries that are to capture a drug lord from The Golden Triangle Area near the Vietnamese border with Laos and protect his family that live in a village near the border. Eddie Ko and his men also in addition to fighting the drug lord's men who are trying to set him free, they must also contend with the Vietnamese army led by a vicious colonel played by Lam Ching Ying. This is absolutely for the most hardcore of action fans. Heroes Shed No Tears is raw and nihilistic action at its finest. This is ultra violence with brutal shoot outs, bodies exploding, people getting impaled, chopped up etc. The acting performances are good, especially Eddie Ko who brings a lot of depth and emotion to his role. The action is incredible, but much more gritty than Woo's future efforts and the mayhem level is kicked to eleven. This gets compared to Eastern Condors sometimes, but this is way more unpolished and fierce. I would recommend this for fans of extreme cinema for sure. Plus this movie is very well made and ahead of its time.
Review of Heroes Shed No Tears
