Along with Chow Yun-Fat, John Woo dominated the local Hong Kong cinemas for almost a decade. When Hollywood called both Woo and Chow, they answered. Before they left, they made Hard Boiled. Viewers like this movie for many valid reasons. I think it's excessive, overblown, and over-hyped. Like The Killer and A Better Tommorrow, I saw Hard Boiled in a cinema. Not the Music Palace in Chinatown, mind you, but at the Cinema Village uptown with the so-called cinema cognoscenti. I felt like Woo was mocking me, it gave me a headache and I've never had the desire to revisit the film on DVD. The promotional image of Chow and the baby is the best thing about the film.