Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to five Minute Film Finder, brought.
[00:00:09] Speaker C: To you by Pioneer Library System.
Welcome to another episode of five Minute Film Finder. It is nice to be joining you in the new year and nice to be joining you, Samuel.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's good to be here.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Look forward to this 2026. And what better way to start them with movies full of explosions. Yes, I have in my notes I have a question for you and I have a rough estimate that'll make sense later on. But I did a monetary. I tried to gauge how much they were spending on explosions. But before we get ahead of ourselves, it is wonderful to join you again. Yeah. Last time I believe we spoke, was it our, was it, was it our classic Hollywood episode or something? Yeah. Okay.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: So like it hot in Sunset Boulevard.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So you know sisters to this. Those movies are fixed today.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: The logical progression.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
No, I was so excited that you agreed to do this. We chose a topic that we hope you all will really enjoy.
I'm sure we'll talk about it. But spoilers. Both of these movies involve violence. They involve gunshots, blood, people dying.
So if that is not your thing, we would love you to have us join us on another episode. But if that is your thing, we're going to talk about some John Woo films today.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. I love John Woo. Are you a big Woo fan?
[00:01:26] Speaker C: I admittedly so. Okay. So I grew up. This is probably awful to admit. I grew up watching Face off, which is totally not appropriate for kids.
It is so, so just John Woo, but American.
Americanized, if you will, which we can talk about a little bit later. But I grew up watching Face off and then also Mission Impossible 2, which we learned both, we both have a love for. Yes.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm a Mission Impossible 2 truther. It is the best one. Everyone says it's the worst. They're wrong. This is, it's, it's the best one.
[00:01:58] Speaker C: Well, it's a long haired Tom Cruise too.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Long haired Tommy C. Can't beat it.
I love doves. I love birds. It's great motorcycle jousting. I mean, you can't.
What. This is a rant for me, but it is movies. I have to look at it. Like I have to, I have to watch what you're, what you're putting up there on screen. And I love the fact that John Woo, like you're, you give him a movie, he's gonna swing for the fences.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: And, and it's gonna look good. Like no matter what happens, it's gonna look good.
[00:02:33] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and not only that. Well, you know, our movies both feature these, but so many staples. I mean, I think even, like Family Guy references John Woo at one point with, like, flying doves and stuff. Like, he has a style. And it's not that he does the same thing every time, but you're right. It's like he has a plan for how things are gonna look and doesn't just go into it blindly. Which is kind of an interesting point for one of our films later because there's some things that he operated without it being completed and kind of added. So it's interesting to kind of dissect a little bit.
But really quick, I want to get back to your Mission Impossible 2.
This might just become a Mission Impossible 2 episode because I think it is also fantastic. You and I were talking before we started recording about one of the reveals at the end about how Ethan Hunt kind of tricks one of the bad guys.
What's really interesting and a theme that I want to touch on and then kind of shift into our movies is that the idea of Mission Impossible 2, you pointed out, I think, very correctly, that it's one of the movies where Ethan Hunt borders on being a bad guy.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Kind of shifts into that territory. And the movies that we're talking about today very much deal with that. Do you mind kind of sharing your thoughts a little bit, what you were thinking about how interesting from that point of view.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So with specifically Mission Impossible 2. But I think. And I mentioned, you know, I came across these sub stack essays Comparing Mission Impossible 2 to the killer, which is the film I'm doing for today. But, but, but In Mission Impossible 2, there's a sense where, like, Ethan Hunt, throughout the whole series is sort of like he is the hero who will always hold the line. He won't. He won't cross certain lines. Except in number two, where he does cross the line. I mean, I think, you know, putting the, you know, the face. The face on a vil and. And gagging them so they can't, like, say who they are and then like, wheeling them in to be basically executed. That's pretty messed up. It's pretty dark. That's pretty. Yeah, it's pretty dark. And I. And I think it's just.
I think it kind of speaks to wu's sort of sensibilities around filmmaking. And, you know, this can go into a whole nother conversation, but just how he views.
Even though his movies are very violent, like, there's.
I think the way he treats violence is better than a lot of filmmakers. But with regards to Ethan Hunt, he sort of, in a way, the way Wu makes these films of these two almost larger than life characters coming into combat with one another. There's a way in which I think they almost coalesce into one another in a way. There's a sense in which these combatants have to become like the other in some way in their struggle with one another.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and I also.
I think you're spot on. And I also think, too touching on what you were saying about these movies being very violent, I think they treat violence in a different way because it's very over the top. But at the same time, like you were saying, the way he merges the characters together and mirrors them.
And then also on top of freeze frames and slow motion and whatnot, he very clearly wants you to realize you're watching a movie. I feel like there's no realism to his attempt. And so it almost feels. Feels like kind of a chaotic kind of fairy tale at times and a metaphor for what he's trying to get across. But I would love to revisit those topics when we start off. So do you mind if we start with your movie today?
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: Okay. If you're ready, tell us what movie you picked and where to find it.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yes, So I picked the Killer, which is from 1989. It's on Canopy, of course, directed by John Woo. And I think this is. I mean, maybe why we talked about Mission Impossible 2 is because, you know, there is a way in which this film has a similar arc in which you have two sort of larger than life characters, right, who are basically antagonists who end up at the end sort of like joining forces with a greater evil out there. So not quite like Mission Impossible 2, but. Okay, I'm done talking about Mission Impossible 2, the killer.
So, I mean, it is sort of incredible in that.
Okay, you're gonna get the typical John Woo things, right? There are birds. There's a lot of violence.
The violence is almost done like sort of a dance, right?
It's done beautifully. And I think to the. To the degree as what you said makes it absurd in a way.
However, there are real consequences. This isn't. Even though it feels like a fairy tale, the violence has very real consequences. And that, like, comes at you right from the beginning, right when the. The killer that he. Basically, it centers around this hitman who's hired to do a job. And in the midst of doing that job, he.
He shoots and causes, like, corneal damage to a singer at this sort of like Nightclub and she's, she's blinded by it and he feels incredibly guilty about, about what he's done and he goes and he listens to her sing and then they strike up like a friendship and, and he like takes care of her basically. He stops her from being mugged, you know, that whole thing. And, and, but on the, on the other side there's this, you know, really duty bound cop who's on his tail basically.
And, and that's where kind of the conflict really like comes together.
But the killer, the assassin, he was double crossed by the crime bosses and so then he's. Now he almost has two conflicts going on. And as the cop is trying to catch the killer, the cop realizes that the crime boss is the bigger bad, the bigger fish. Right.
And it culminates in this, I mean, incredibly moving final act where.
I don't know if I want to spoil it, but I was quite taken with it.
But basically the cop and the killer team up to fight off the bigger crime boss.
But this is the thing I really kind of like about it is that some of the shots, and I was mentioning this to you before, but some of the shots feel like they would be at home within like a room. A romantic movie.
[00:08:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Right. You have shots of the killer and the cop and they're set to the same bit of score that is sort of melodic and what you would expect and sort of almost like Titanic maybe.
And they're both pensive and thinking and there's a way in which the two of them, they are coming together because even though they're on opposite sides of the law, they both sort of have a moral or ethical code that they live by and just like a strong desire and ambition to accomplish a certain goal. Right. For the cop it's catching the killer and for the killer it's making amends for harming an innocent person.
And that's the other thing that I like about John Woo films is that I feel like as for as many like faceless henchmen get, get got.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: And there's a lot, there are a.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Lot you do have to wrestle with like. Oh yeah, like this, this innocent woman who was just showing up to do her job and sing suffered as a result of this man's choice to be a hitman, basically.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: And. And he has to wrestle with that and that. And so, you know, we might talk more about that theme in your. But. But yeah, I think, I don't know, there's just. And the other thing is like, it's just everything he does Is, is, is beautiful. I think, like his, I think he has, he has style. Right?
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: And you.
I can, I'm starting. Speaking of violence, I can hear the footsteps of Wilhelm coming up.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, like if you sit and watch like a John Woo film, you're not gonna, you're not gonna come away being like, blah.
But it is a movie that you have to watch, right? Like, you can't, I don't know, don't, don't go and watch this film and like scroll on your phone, like, right. Watch it.
And that is Wilhelm cutting me short. But, but yeah, no, that's. I highly recommend the Killer, especially if you like Mission Impossible 2.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Or maybe if you hate it, maybe see why, you know, John Woo was given sort of the opportunity to, to direct it. Because I think this film and the film you're going to talk about were big, big players and making him a big name for American audiences.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: Absolutely. I wanted to ask you, where can we find this movie?
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Thank you for reminding me. Canopy. It is on Canopy.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: So awesome. Yeah, yeah, Check it out. Also starring in my movie as well. The amazing Chow Young Fat. Yes, fantastic.
Well said. I enjoyed. I just sat back and listened that whole time.
No, no, no, no, that was great. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed hearing your take on that. That was very, very interesting. And I think Will said, well, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with the chronological next film. I think actually there is one in between. Maybe check me on that. But for my film after the break.
And welcome back to a John Woo episode of five Minute Film Finder. This is your host, Kendall, along with my co host Samuel, talked about an excellent movie called the Killer. They made a remake of it by John Woo. Is that correct? I believe so, yeah.
I have not watched it. I'm kind of afraid to watch it.
Just because you like those classics, you don't want to ruin your expectation. You don't want to take your expectations in for something that you already love.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[00:12:43] Speaker C: But I absolutely, thoroughly enjoyed hearing your take on the Killer. So my choice that we're going to talk about is actually, like I said, chronological after your choice, which is going to be, if Wilhelm will start me, the film called Hard Boiled. It is rated R. Both these films are rated R. I want to mention we gave a spoiler or warning at the beginning, but they are, they do include violence, kind of gang violence, mafia violence.
But like I said, you know, obviously this is directed by John Woo.
This was right before, a couple of years before he exploded onto the American scene.
His American films again, Face off, Mission Impossible 2. Broken Arrow is a movie you mentioned as well.
This was right before he made a switch. These are films that came out of Hong Kong at the time, which is very important to point out because there is a difference between Chinese films and Hong Kong films. This was, of course, before Hong Kong was given back to the Chinese people as well. So this is still under British rule, which I kind of want to talk about in my movie a little bit. I think there's a little bit of appeal to other audiences.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:43] Speaker C: But then my film, just for a little information, stars Chow Yung Fat. You'll know him from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. He's also one of the pirate bosses in Pirates of the A World's End. And then the other star is Tommy Leong. He is also in fantastic movies. In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai, which is amazing.
And then of course, what inspired the Departed, a movie called Infernal Affairs. He's in that as well.
So both fantastic leads, but really quick a summary for mine.
The name, it starts off right off the bat. Chow Yung Fat's character's name is Tequila. Inspector Tequila is his nickname, but it says Tequila is a hard boiled cop who loses his partner in a shootout with gun smugglers. To bring them down, Tequila must team with an undercover cop named Tony, who is posing as a hired gun with the Hong Kong Triad, which is run by a vicious boss named Johnny Wong. Yeah, a lot of names, a lot of places, but it's. It's very.
This is. This was an interesting film. I kind of want to talk immediately about the differences between yours and mine and then we can talk about our favorite beats.
This was. I read John Woo's answer to criticism he got about kind of glorifying gangster and gangster violence in his previous films. Both of these main characters are very imperfect, but they're both cops. Yeah. And spoiler. I won't tell you exactly what happens, but it's a happier ending than yours, I would say. Yes.
Yeah. What did you. Did you find that interesting? I guess that it was. He kind of took the other approach because they are very imperfect. They're very kind of what you were saying earlier, kind of dark characters.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
I actually was looking down at my notes here and I just. I had written this, just this question, who are we? And I think there's this idea of identity that he's kind of playing around with of particularly with like the Undercover cop. Right.
You know, where's kind of. Where's the line? Like, you know, how do you inhabit this role?
And when you're watching some of these undercover cops do the things that they're doing, they're doing incredibly violent things and bad things.
I don't know how that worked in, like, the law, the legal situation in Hong Kong. I don't think an undercover cop could do that in America. Not sure.
That's not legal advice for all for any of the undercover cops out there. But.
But yeah, it was there. Yeah. It is darker because it's like, you know, how do you inhabit this space without succumbing to, like, the temptations of the triad life? I guess.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, in these movies, both of these feature some amazing action sequences. In terms of visual.
There's a fantastic opening sequence in this and they're in a tea house and it's a really cool. Which I read, by the way, was actually shot before they had a screen for this movie. So I was kind of. I kind of talked about that earlier where it's like he kind of seems like he has a method to his madness, but maybe not as much as we think, but there's all this violence and whatnot too. But it's interesting because he is just. He has just so many things going on at the same time. Because you're right, he also has ideas about identity. It's not just like a gore fest of a movie.
Both of these characters, you know, we talked about consequences, you know, spoiler. He kills an undercover cop. The Chow Young Fat character kills an undercover cop.
It talks about real life ramifications and kind of dealing with the idea of, you know, well, this guy, they both killed people and, you know. Yeah, exactly what you said. Like, how is. How are we supposed to digest these characters besides just being smooth jazz players? By the way, is the soundtrack not fantastic? I really, really. The whole aesthetic of that movie, I just want to touch on really quick. That late 80s, early 90s. There's a really cool shot when it introduces Tony that he's like driving in a red, like, Corvette looking car and there's like a cool like,'80s skyline and music.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Incredible.
[00:17:32] Speaker C: I read it was composed by Michael Gibbs, who's a jazz composer. So that's pretty cool.
But, gosh, I'm almost out of time. I could talk about this movie all day. Really quick. I just want to talk about my last, last few seconds. This film was kind of their break into the US Market. Yeah. They premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and that was Kind of their touch into the North American audiences. Rave reviews. It said people were stomping and clapping when they saw it. And that's time for me. But I just highly, highly recommend the film Hard Boiled. I could talk about it all day.
Last bit, I would be remiss. There's an awesome. You mentioned it before we started, but sliding down a stairs while shooting.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: It's so cool.
These are just cool movies. I think, you know, just aesthetically I could just. Yeah. Talk for days and days about that. But last things I do want to mention is you can find this on Canopy. And then I put. For similar films, if you're interested, possibly interested. I would compare these to John Wick series. Yeah. Lethal Weapon series. Yeah. And then also this is a movie out of Thailand, but the Raid Redemption, which is a fantastic movie. If you haven't seen that before.
All are just kind of cops blurring the lines. What's acceptable, what's not.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: I highly recommend Hard Boiled. Yeah. Checking out John Woo.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I mean that John Wick comparison is really. There was a moment like in the hospital when.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: When they're like shooting back and forth under the, like over the window, they're popping up. It felt very similar to like John Wick.
[00:18:55] Speaker C: John Wick, yeah. Yeah. I feel like you can definitely kind of, you know, maybe not the directors may or may not admit it, but I mean, he is being referenced. His work is being referenced in a lot of ways I did find kind of humorous. I don't know if you caught it or if you're a Terminator fan, but there's a part when Tony has like a box of roses that he pulls a gun out of.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: In the same year that was in Terminator 2 Judgment Day. When he's walking down the hallway and he drops the box of roses and pulls a shotgun out.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: Purely coincidental. I read.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Yeah. It just happened to come to both of them. James Cameron and so you mentioned Titanic. I thought that was a nice little. Tie them together. Yeah. But yeah, it's this. These movies are really. Just really neat, really enjoyable watches.
Any final thoughts that you wanted?
[00:19:37] Speaker A: I mean, it's just. I think that era of like Hong Kong cinema is all, you know, I hate to say, like, you know, mandatory viewing, but you know, if you.
So many of those like visual ideas and things have just, you know, filtered into American movies, it's just.
Just watch them, you know, they're good and you know, like, you know, like, you know, if kind of like you mentioned the. Infernal affairs, another great, like, Hong Kong, like, action flick. And then that, you know, basically Scorsese just takes that and makes the Departed.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: You know, and wins Best Picture.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he definitely Americanized it big time.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: But. And, and they're. They're tonally, I think, very different, but. But, but, yeah, I think, like. But you see how, you know, cinema is like a world art form, and it's. It's cool to see different ideas bouncing around. So, yeah, go watch them. Go watch these movies.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you're right. These filmmakers, they're watching each other's works and they're saying, oh, I can do this, I can do that.
I'm so glad you enjoyed. You enjoyed them, and I'm so glad that you agreed to do this.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: One last bit I wanted to mention is that of course, the other side of Hong Kong films, there's Jackie Chan movies, those usually the ones that people watch, those are equally just as great, but really check out and kind of get your feelers out for other Hong Kong stuff, like you said.
Well, as always, I enjoy our episodes together. Samuel. This is fun. Yeah. Maybe we'll have to talk more about Mission Possible two off air. Yeah.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Well, thanks again for joining us and we will catch you next time.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah, see you then.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: 5 Minute Film Finder is a digital program brought to you by Pioneer Library System in Oklahoma.
All opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and not those of the organization.
Five Minute Film Finder is produced, recorded and mixed by Ben C. Theme music by Ben C.
If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please email podcastioneerlibrarysystem.org Remember to, like, review and subscribe. Thanks for listening.
