Patrick's 20 Favorite Action Movies

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07. Hard Boiled (1992)

When I saw John Woo’s action classic in the theater for the first time I was completely in awe. It was over the top and crazy and I loved every minute of it. With a body count of 307 Hard Boiled is a celebration of action and gun play. With heavy slow motion, two fisted .45s, guys diving through the air while firing said .45s, doves, more slow motion and no one reloading ever, this movie is a love note to action, violence and raging badasses. Over 100,000 rounds of blank ammunition was used during the filming of this movie and those rounds were fired out of 200 different guns. Through the course of the story Chow Yun Fat’s Tequila has gun fights just about everywhere including a hospital where he has to fight guys while holding a baby. The movie is just flat out crazy and fun to watch. I liked a lot of Woo’s American movies but none of them came close to this orgy of gunplay and violence. The movie isn’t just violent but it is creatively and artistically violent and the choreography comes off looking like a beautiful and elaborate dance number. A lot of directors have cribbed from Woo’s style and in some ways his techniques have been over emulated such that people are tired of them but looking back on this movie you see how that style is meant to be done and it is glorious.

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6 Comments


  1. The Professional? I effing HATED that movie SO MUCH!!!! UGH. You know when you think a movie is just so bad that it makes you angry that you watched it? That is how I feel about The Professional.

    I just don’t DIG movies like that as a general rule.


    1. Given that you never saw the Matrix because it ‘didn’t look even remotely good’ I think it is safe to say this whole list is probably not material you would dig.


    1. GJ: As I said above: I tried to keep it to movies that didn’t stray too far into other their own sub-genre where I could, for instance I avoided primarily martial arts movies as they deserve their own list.

      Ninja Assassin definitely goes on the martial arts list which currently doesn’t exist.


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