Random Movie Project: 'Heroes Shed No Tears'

This experiment has already manifested its potential quality. I understand that for every great movie I get, there will be approximately 100 crappy movies, but today must've been an exception. For today I saw John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears.












Heroes Shed No Tears (1986)
Writer/Director: John Woo

Summary:

This is a tale of conviction, family honor, courage, loyalty and explosive fireballs of death. In Ying Xiong Wei Lei or Heroes Shed No Tears, we follow the story of Chan Chung (Eddy Ko), a Chinese ex-mercenary hired by the Thai government to kidnap a drug tycoon, a stubborn fellow called Samton, from the deadly region of southeast Asia known as "Golden Triangle." To succeed in this quest, he must also protect his family (all of whom die, except for his son), dodge millions of bullets and fireballs (he gets both shot and burned), rescue a French reporter, his wife and his chauffeur (again, all of whom die) and recruit the help of Louis, an old American war buddy with a wide selection of live-in prostitutes (you guessed it, they all die). Actually, pretty much everyone this guy knows dies, thus teaching a valuable lesson: if you ever encounter Chan Chung in the middle of a kidnapping plot, assassination mission, or even at Lens Crafters, get at least one hundred miles away as quickly as possible because, chances are, you'll die. He even sat back and watched the evil Vietnamese forces light a circle of gasoline on fire around his son. Luckily, the resilient little kid began digging in the dirt with his bare hands a buried himself to escape the flames. And it worked! Of course it's impossible, but it's more than his father was apparently willing to try.

Impressions:

The first thing you'll notice about this movie, or at least the poor 1992 video transfer I watched, are the hilariously bad subtitles.

"Golden Triangle lies in the delta area amidst Burma, Cambodia and Thailand where produces 75% of world's drug. February this year the Thai government determining to destroy it and it's tycoon Sampton sent out a recruited troop which was made up of several Chineses..."

One scene even has his American pal, Louis, shouting (in English) "You Motherfucker!!" while the subtitles read "You son of a bitch!"

Actually, their English is way better than my Cantonese, or what ever the hell language this movie was translated from, so I can't really complain about that. As a whole this was actually a pretty enjoyable film. John Woo's tendency towards blood, guts and bullets is fully exhibited, here. Woo has even said this was his first "real film." According to IMDb, this movie was shelved after completion and never saw actual release until the success of Woo's following feature, A Better Tomorrow. It certainly sets the tone for his later movies such as Hard-Boiled, Hard Target and The Killer. Pretty much everything he made before he "went Hollywood" with Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission Impossible II.

But redemption can still be had - I'm still waiting for John Woo's He-Man and Metroid.