The Thai government hires a group of Chinese mercenaries to capture a powerful drug lord from the Golden Triangle. The mercenaries manage to capture the drug lord, but soon find themselves pursued by his forces, and the forces of a bitter Thai officer. The Chinese mercenaries are vastly outnumbered, and as their numbers begin to dwindle, their desperation pulls them into a corner as their enemies close in on them.
Lepsze jutro, Os Heróis não Choram, The Sunset Warrior, Blast Heroes, Héroes de guerra, Les Larmes d'un héros, 영웅무류, No Coração do Perigo, Герои не плачут, 英雄无泪
South Korea
Hong Kong
Germany18
Germany
Hong Kong
South Korea
they cry bullets.
shot in '85 but not released until after A BETTER TOMORROW, this is really patient zero for what we think of as a John Woo movie. mainly it features the scope of the mayhem (and it's not exaggerating to call it near-constant) that would appear in his later major works without much of the grace. the foundations of his code are here: fight with your brother, protect the innocent, fight fire with fire.
but he's learning how to stage those one-against-a-hundred conflagrations before he learns how to shoot them, and so the camera mostly just stays put while you get nice clean medium-wide shots. sometimes it feels more covered than choreographed.
but that's ok because this is…
Action! - What Does The Dove Say? Woo Woo Woo Woo!
Having made his name as a martial arts and slapstick writer and director, John Woo now embarks on a new phase that will define him throughout the rest of the 1980s, 90s, and still today, that is, his balls to the wall, over the top violent films.
His first stab into the genre is reminiscent of the explosive, propagandistic and wildly entertaining movies made by Cannon Group, predominantly featuring the always reliable and Lethal All-American Hero Chuck Norris. Blood is splattered, tons of guts are shown, and a sheer amount of torture is being done by both parties with the "ludovico technique at the sun" being most memorable. Additionally,…
My sixth John Woo movie overall, but only my second of his Hong Kong ones (after The Killer.) Heroes Shed No Tears is certainly less stylized compared to some of the others I have seen, but when a movie is balls to the wall action from minute one, you won't hear me complain.
The action is just relentless, with scene after scene of (gun) fights and explosions. There really isn't much going on in the plot department; it's capture the bad guy and turn him in, but with all those enemy soldiers standing between you and home, that's easier said than done.
The action is topnotch and quite vicious at times with some great gory moments. The stunt work was really well done.
I didn't like the kid though because he behaved very un-kid-like. It always bugs me when movies include a child that basically acts like an adult. Plus.. he was just super annoying!
One of the most obscenely violent movies I think I’ve ever seen. In terms of bodies being impaled and set on fire it is certainly up there with the greats like the Salem Witch Trials or, the Battle of Jericho, even. Shit’s biblical. Doesn’t necessarily feel like a John Woo movie but what it does feel like is one of those cheapo 80s Filipino Rambo knockoffs meets one of those cheapo 80s Italian Cannibal Holocaust knockoffs i.e. a jungle exploitation action movie. With a truly excessive amount of explosions that more often than not looks like were giving the surrounding stuntmen a close pubic hair shave; fat, juicy squibs; and just general all around mayhem and nastiness; to boot. Body count: 323.
Ein weiterer Actionfilm aus Hongkong von John Woo den ich mir mal gönne und zuvor nicht kannte. Action trifft es ganz gut, denn in "Blast Heroes" (dt. Titel) wird geballert was das Zeug hält. Der erste moderne Actionfilm von Woo plätschert mit seiner überraschungsarmen Story vor sich hin und auch die Schauspieler glänzen eher mit Overacting als mit Leistung. Bei der Drogen-/Sexszene war ich etwas verwirrt und auch einige Comic Relief Szenen wollen nicht so richtig in den Film passen. Zur Verteidigung sollte man sagen, dass John Woo dies vom Studio aufgezwungen wurde um den Produktionswert zu erhöhen. Davon kann man halten was man will.
Schlecht war "Blast Heroes" keineswegs, er ist halt nur nicht so gut wie er vielleicht hätte sein können. Für einen einfachen Actionabend (vielleicht auch mit Freunden), reichts allemal.
Body count laut Quellen (hab nicht nachgezählt): 323
You know what you're in for in the first ten minutes with tons of slo-mo explosions and squibs, man-sized machine guns, dual pistol shootouts, and a flamethrower melting both drugs and drug dealers. This is John Woo's version of a Cannon Films "men, women, and children on a mission" movie.
Heroes Shed No Tears ist ein blutiger, lauter, wahnsinniger Ritt, von der ersten bis zur letzten Minute. Ein "Men on a Mission"-Gewaltorchester mit unzähligen Leichen und dutzenden Explosionen. John Woos Frühwerk zeigt eindrucksvoll, wie sein Talent entstand. Auch wenn nicht alles im Film zu 100% aus seiner Feder entspringt, da es eine Auftragsarbeit war. Da gesellen sich dann teils seltsam deplatziert wirkende Comedy-Momente und ein wenig Soft-Erotik dazu. Leicht disharmonisch, aber zumindest kurze Verschnaufpausen in diesem Action-Marathon.
Und der ist inszenatorisch zwar hier und da noch durchaus etwas holprig, aber auf welcher Größe Woo schon Schlachten platzieren konnte, ist trotzdem eindrucksvoll. Zudem ist das alles natürlich handgemacht und man fragt sich manchmal schon, ob die ganzen Stuntleute lebensmüde waren. Was…
I know that John Woo lamented throughout most of his career that he wished he could be an artisan filmmaker that dabbled in all genres, but you look at HEROES SHED NO TEARS (his first attempt at the bullet ballet) and you go “Ah! The man was born to bring this brilliance to the screen! And let’s be honest, he directed 16 features before he got to HEROES (which included comedies, drama, operas), so it’s not like he didn’t get to experiment before he found his calling! HEROES, SHED NO TEARS is tightly wound, violent and filled with the kind of operatic carnage that had not graced the screen since Peckinpah started shooting in slow motion. HEROES was famously shelved…
John Woo's project immediately preceding his breakthrough A Better Tomorrow and only released after that film's success. It's easy to see why Woo had initially decided to leave this unreleased. It's easily the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen from him, the kind of movie people who don't like Hong Kong movies think all Hong Kong movies are. That said, it's still a ton of goofy fun.
I told myself, I wasn’t going to cry...
*Don’t be a hero*
Woovember 2021 - Film #35
Watch an action film directed by John Woo
The earliest John Woo film I had seen was Last Hurrah For Chivalry by that time Woo was a metteur en scene for other people's visions, so that movie looked like any HK studio film of the time despite a few recognisable touches from the director here and there. Between that and Heroes Shed No Tears Woo had to make multiple silly comedies to make up for the flop of his above mentioned underrated martial arts film up until he decided to switch from Kung Fu to Gun Fu and become a household name with the smash hit A Better Tomorrow in 1986 although by its release he had already finished Heroes Shed No Tears, it was still shelved and…
John Woo's A Fistful of Dollars. A trial run for later better films. His brotherhood themes and taste for mayhem are already firm in place, but form can't quite give it the memorable breathe room and operatic expressiveness of his later films yet. The violence is remarkable and relentless. Woo nowadays claims it is his first good film probably because it is the first one that is recognizable his, that is bullshit but it does amounts for one of the better pure exploitation spectacles of mid 80's Hong Kong cinema.
