Movie of the Day – The Replacement Killers

I will watch any movie that has Chow Yun-fat on screen. Shit, I sat through the crappy second Pirates of the Caribbean movie just because he was playing some typecast role of a Chinese naval pirate. Also his ship looked like a dragon, which was bad ass in my opinion. But for me Chow Yun will always be the premier action star. Sure that is a tall opinion that I am putting out there, but if you are an action fan, you will remember that this man, along with John Woo, pretty much defined the bullet ballets of late 80s and early 90s. From acrobatic gun battles and making the act of weilding duel guns a staple of action cinema, Chow Yun is the man and you won’t find any actions films that are better than what we did for Hong Kong cinema. While his roles in Hong Kong cinema are well documented, he did take his first turn in an American film directed by a new, young director Antoine Fuqua, one that is underappreciated in my opinon. That film is The Replacement Killers.

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Movie of the Day – Hard Boiled

Alright, so you watched the trailer and might be thinking to yourself, “Hey is there any dialogue in this movie?”  Well there is, but it’s the bullets that do the talking.  If you are an action fan and that trailer doesn’t get you pumped enough to break out some nerf guns and start diving through the air shooting them at your pets (don’t judge me), then you have no soul.  Hong Kong action films get this associated tag with their movies known as “bullet ballet”.  To be frank, I am certain that dive rolls, jumping through the air with twin pistols and shotgun diving isn’t the standard thing they teach you in firearm safety class, police or military training or even on the streets.  Shit does it look awesome though.

If I am talking about Hong Kong action films, then John Woo films are the only thing you need to know.  If you aren’t familiar with his work, well he didn’t have a rather prolific career as a mainstream US director.  Face/Off, Windtalkers, and Hard Target aren’t really the ground breaking films that they wanted to be, although Face/Off is just plain fucking awesome, but the man is a god back in Hong Kong and could be credited as the man who brought Hong Kong action films to forefront of American viewing audiences.  But while there are dozens of movies to choose from, nothing beats Hard Boiled.

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