20 Facts About Classic Hong Kong Action Movies (To Dual-Wield In Slo-Mo)

These flicks are so good, Hollywood had no choice but to steal from them.
20 Facts About Classic Hong Kong Action Movies (To Dual-Wield In Slo-Mo)

Under the big umbrella of very seriously – then we’re not discussing martial arts movies in what follows.

So we’re focusing on strictly action movies, and hence on a Face-Off-centered John Woo biopic), we now discuss some facts about his movies, but also about other aspects of classic Hong Kong action cinema.

'Heroes Shed No Tears'

HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES THE MISSING LINK Woo's first masterpiece was 1986's A Better Tomorrow - but between this classic and his previous, non- heroic bloodshed work, the missing link is Heroes Shed No Tears. However, Woo dislikes this ultra-dark war movie, and did it just to fulfil a contract. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

'A Better Tomorrow' Prequels

CRACKED.COM HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES A TALE OF TWO PREQUELS John Woo and producer Tsui Hark had a falling out after A Better Tomorrow and its sequel, so each made their own prequel. Hark did the official one, while Woo made the surprisingly similar but superior Bullet in the Head.

Source: Wikipedia

John Woo and Jackie Chan

CRACKED.COM HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES JOHN WOO AND JACKIE CHAN Before his action films, John Woo's first works were romance dramas and martial arts movies - like 1976's Hand of Death, with a very young Jackie Chan. It's a crime these two never did a big budget movie together.

Source: Wikipedia

Jackie Chan's 'The Protector'

CRACKED.COM HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES THE PROTECTOR This 1985 movie was Jackie Chan's second (failed) attempt at entering the American market, and it was indeed a serious action movie close to the heroic bloodshed pieces back home. Chan really disliked it, and ended up re-editing it himself for Hong Kong.

Source: Wikipedia

Baby Poisoning in 'Hard Boiled'

HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES BABY POISONING The villain for John Woo's 1992 Hard Boiled was supposed to be a baby-poisoning psychopath, but investors hated the idea, particularly in the U.S. Production was halted while the script was rewritten. CRACKED.COM

Source: Wikipedia

'Hard Boiled' and 'Terminator 2'

HONG KONG ACTION MOVIES GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE If there's one movie that compares to Hard Boiled, that's Terminator 2 - even in the fact that both use boxes of flowers to hide guns. That might be a reference to Stanley Kubrick's The Killing - and yet, John Woo and James Cameron did it just one year apart. CRACKED.COM

Source: IMDb

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