12 Hours of Terror

This one is no sequel, since it was shot a year before John Woo's breath-taking "tour de force", it just ends in an hospital ; but believe your Phaithful Phrog, it's one of Hong Kong's best, with all the incredible action and beautiful ideas you expect from them - but one or two notches better. The plot's idea - trying to fond a blood donor against a bunch of terrorists - is simple but well-heeded and gives out some brains as well. This ain't got the brains of a Tsui Hark movies or the guts of John Woo, but comes very, very close.

In The Last Blood, Andy Lau and Alan Tam (a cop and a gangster) team up to find a rare type of blood needed for The Dali Lama and Andy Lau 's girlfriend that were injured in a terrorist attack by The Japanese Red Army. The Red Army also is in search of the people of this rare blood type. (To kill them, of course) Eric Tsang is a would be donor that our heroes must protect (and for comedy relief). This is a Wong Jong production, so expect it to be ridiculous ( for better or worse) and it has some silly slapstick comedy as well as some not so funny jokes about AIDS, as well as some of the intense gun fu action, with a massive hail of blood and bullets with massive explosions and things blowing up everywhere. The action here alone is worth the price of admission and really makes me miss this special era of HK cinema.

Like in every HK action franchise you can never know whether movies are actually connected.As I reckon this movie`s only tie to famed `Hard Boiled` is the title given by money-lovin` producers. Anyway,two ideas keep Woo`s movie connected with this feature.First of all,main characters are a detective and the `golden hearted` mobster.Second similarity is that plots and final showdowns of both movies have something to do with hospitals. Each movie contains energetic and rampaging shootouts. While Woo`s original had all main landmarks of his opus (Scorsesian and Melivillian influence),the sequel shows that it was made by eminent HK director Wong Jing.His landmarks are `Looney Tunes` pacing,speeded up action and plotting derived from 1980s Hollywood action fare.The difference is quite obvious. This movie works remarkably well and it doesn`t disgrace the `Hard Boiled` franchise.Of course it works well on its own since Woo`s and Wong Jing`s styles are barely comparable. If you overrule the input of dumb HK comedy `Hard Boiled 2` is highly enjoyable.Wong Jing provides us with enough razzle-dazzle that makes this movie a must not just for HK action afficionados but even for weekend fans of the genre that look for recognizable HK fare.If you like high-calibre gunplay,high bodycounts and Eastern Heroes this feature may scratch your itches. Interesting aspect of the movie is its explicit anti-communist orientation because characters joke a lot with the Red China.

No pun intended - this has a few titles. One of them (in the UK) is Hard Boiled 2 (in Germany apparently it was Hard Boiled 3!) ... even though it originally was released before the original Hard Boiled movie by John Woo. Now someone asked the distributor in the UK why they would do something like that ... well apart from this being an action movie and having a climax at a hospital ... they told him that they asked John Woo if it would be ok to use the title ... and he gave them his blessings.

Not sure if that actually is true (I believe the guy who told the story, that he asked and got the answer) ... I mean if they told the truth. Whatever the case, the movie is filled with action and comedy ... and as they say: you couldn't do a movie like this nowadays in China (Hong Kong) ... the Daka Lama is clearly the Dalai Lama ... blasphemous and apparently not something the government would let anyone get away with.

Andy Lau is always a treat - the supporting cast is also really good. I still prefer the original and only Hard Boiled ... but this is a great action movie too (stunt and otherwise)

This is a solid Heroic Bloodshed drama with some EXCELLENT scenes of stunt work and gun play. The plot doesn't cover anything memorable, however it has a fast pacing so the run-time will go by fairly quickly. A high religious figure visits Singapore with full knowledge of a planned terrorist attack, although he entrusts the local police to protect him if anything awry should go down (which it most certainly does). The movie follows a group of ragtag men who try to save the religious figure's life after it becomes endangered and on-the-line in a local hospital. A terrorist group wishes to have the figure killed, and many waves of enemies confront our group of ragtag heroes in the midst of assassination attempts. There's a multitude of great action present within the movie, and a couple scenes should surprise you in terms of WOW.. If your a fan of over-the-top action movies then this should be a satisfying watch. - 7/10