JCVD stars in John Woo's Hollywood directorial debut as a drifter hired by a hottie to investigate what happened to her daddy and in the process gets caught in the middle of a most dangerous game with a gang of psychotic fucks lead by Lance Henriksen and his right-hand man Arnold Vosloo. Manhunt. Dog tags. Yancy before the crack. JCVD's earring. JCVD's mullet. Payphone. Purse snatch. Switchblade. Going all Kickboxer on some motherfuckers. The picket line. Day labor. Union dues. Suitcase of memories. Sad news. Zartan. Scissors. Bishop without Ripley. Nut punch. Police harassment. Piano keys. Massage interruptus. X-rays. Sassy cop. Letter opener. Peep hole headshot. Money belt. Cemetery fun. Desperate plea. Roper's last stand. Body bag goodbye. Exploding windshield.…

I don't like action films, but I LOVED Hard Target. Every now and then the genre offers up a film so amazing that I begin to question why I don't like more action packed, ass kicking movies; but to answer my own question, it's because, unfortunately, they can't all be directed by John Woo, John McTiernan or Paul Verhoeven.

Woo's signature use of slow motion and pigeons adds a whole new level of commitment to how over-the-top action films are, and fortunately for him, it works so damn well.

I consider myself lucky that I am able to enjoy these movies sitting next to someone like my husband, who is so enthusiastically in love with action films, because that enthusiasm…

Hong Kong director John Woo made his mark back in his native country with hits such as The Killer and Hard Boiled starring Chow Yun-Fat back in the late 1980s. It wasn't long until he arrived in Hollywood that he unleashed his brand of Western-based high -octane violence and heavy-handed gunplay to the masses. 1993's Hard Target was Woo's U.S debut and his first film that starred predominantly Western-based actors. The character of Chance was originally going to be played by Kurt Russell, famed for Escape From New York and Big Trouble In Little China, in the main lead role, but he was busy with other projects, and thus was unavailable. Woo then turned to Universal Pictures first choice in…

"Poor people get bored, too." or "You are a fucking buffalo."

Such a great showcase for Woo, even in its bastardized release form* an exercise in style and excess, with his slow-fast-slow cutting fully intact and a tonal register that has room for both devastating regret and snake-punching. There's also a tantalizing predatory shock-capital institutional-failure streak, with rich scumbags Most-Dangerous-Game-ing it up in an economically depressed New Orleans during a police strike. If Woo's American films were coming out today, they'd be heralded as the unreconstructed works of an old master.

*There are four versions I know of: the 96-minute theatrical release; the 100-minute "international" version (restoring basic cuts for violence); the 116-minute rough "director's cut" (Woo's preferred version, temped…

As much as I enjoy John Woo's older movies, bringing his Hong Kong style to Hollywood clearly does not work based on Hard Target. I'm not going to deny that there are some truly awesome moments scattered throughout, like JCVD punching a snake (that made me laugh my ass off), Lance Henriksen's random outbursts as the villain, and of course, some classic dual-wielding, slow-mo John Woo action.

The problem was that it took SO unbelievably long for the action to kick in (at least half the movie aside from some random fist-fights and bullets) that once it finally did, I really did not care at all. Not to mention, the action sequences themselves are kind of a mixed bag with…

Watched the unrated cut and god damn it slapped hard!!! Simaltaneously utilizies JCVD better than anything else I’ve ever seen him in and has something serious to say about economics? I mean what more could you want from a movie??? Doves? Well guess what this movie has a fuck ton of them. And arrows too! As good as he is at organizing images to maximize every beat of action, Woo is also a master of sound. Every gunshot sounds louder than it looks. Every roundhouse kick feels fatal not because of how convincingly it may be staged, but because of how percicesly I can hear it absolutely dent the side of each bad guy’s skull. And it’s absolute baffling more…