Saw Hard Boiled (Thanks, Basil!) It opens on a cop named Tequila, undercover as a jazz musician, staking out a tea-house where an arms deal is about to go down. He comments to his partner that this is just like a cop movie. This, my friends, is a giant flashing neon sign indicating that this is going to be the epitome of a cop movie. It knows it and now we know it. There'll be crooked cops (actually no, because this is China,) weaselly informants, a tortured romance, a loose cannon cop, and all the gun fights you could ask for. There's also a one-eyed super-assassin (which was directly referenced in Kill Bill.) Sure enough, the stakeout immediately becomes a protracted gun-battle which demolishes the teashop and kills dozens of anonymous gangsters, cops, and bystanders.
The plot (which doesn't really matter anyway) follows the loose-cannon cop as he tries to take down a gun-running gang. In the gang is a maybe undercover cop / maybe informant whom he butts heads with. This takes them to a hospital where a climactic showdown will occur. At this point, I paused the film and got a snack. When I got back, I noticed that there was still about a third of the film left. Well, I thought, I guess there's a protracted epilogue after the climactic battle. I was wrong. Like the average pig, this film climaxes for about half an hour. What at first seems like a straightforward showdown turns into a hostage situation and then into a hospital-wide shooting gallery and then into a disaster movie where babies (why not orphans? Just go the whole hog.) are being lifted out of burning windows by a SWAT team. It's madness.
This is an action movie's action movie. Stupid, simple and glorious. I enjoyed its grand excess. This would be a good party-movie. It's ridiculous, but it knows it.
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