What a mess, and what a disappointment by Woo's standards. The plot does this weird thing where it's super simple, yet kind of hard to follow because of the lack of flow, and the pretty bad pacing. It goes on for at least 40 minutes without any action, and when the action arrives... it's not quite as good as the first A Better Tomorrow (with the exception of the ending). Also: really didn't like the character of Lung, for some reason.
Probably didn't do the movie any favours that I recently watched Hard Boiled, which is one of Woo's best (action-wise, I think it is his best). And then I committed a bit of a movie viewer sin by pausing the movie halfway through to read reviews... I wanted to know if the rest of the movie was worth my time tbh.
I guess it was in the end. Chow Yun-Fat slid down a staircase while firing guns. I found out where that gif of the guy leaning through the doorway and giving a thumbs up came from. And then the last 20 minutes are good enough to feel like a completely different movie. A solid emotional payoff and a fantastic climactic action scene (that might well have influenced Kill Bill Vol. 1's big fight scene as well as Django Unchained's big shootout scene... and maybe Pineapple Express' ending too lol) that partially redeems the movie.
If the whole movie had felt like the last 20 minutes, this could be another John Woo classic. As it stands, it still sort of disappoints, even if just for the reason that most top-tier John Woo movies contain more than one big/memorable action setpiece.
Probably didn't do the movie any favours that I recently watched Hard Boiled, which is one of Woo's best (action-wise, I think it is his best). And then I committed a bit of a movie viewer sin by pausing the movie halfway through to read reviews... I wanted to know if the rest of the movie was worth my time tbh.
I guess it was in the end. Chow Yun-Fat slid down a staircase while firing guns. I found out where that gif of the guy leaning through the doorway and giving a thumbs up came from. And then the last 20 minutes are good enough to feel like a completely different movie. A solid emotional payoff and a fantastic climactic action scene (that might well have influenced Kill Bill Vol. 1's big fight scene as well as Django Unchained's big shootout scene... and maybe Pineapple Express' ending too lol) that partially redeems the movie.
If the whole movie had felt like the last 20 minutes, this could be another John Woo classic. As it stands, it still sort of disappoints, even if just for the reason that most top-tier John Woo movies contain more than one big/memorable action setpiece.