A Hero Never Dies (1998)
Directors: Johnnie To Kei-Fung
Action Director: Yuen Bun
Script: Yau Nai-Hoi, Szeto Kam-Yuen
Producer: Johnnie To Kei-Fung
Wai Ka-Fai
Cast:
Lau Ching-Wan
Leon Lai Ming
Fiona Leung Ngai-Ling
Yoyo Mung Ka-Wai
Lam Suet
Yuen Bun
Henry Fong Ping
Sato Keiji
Cantonese: Chan Sam Ying Hung
Mandarin: Zhen1 Xin1 Ying1 Xiong2
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese
Running Time: 98 min
Merit
Winner, Best Director, 5th Hong Kong Film Critics Society
Nominee, Fiona Leung, Best Actress, 18th
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REVIEWS
“This is one for the true believers. If you long for the heroic archetypes of late 80s and early 90s Hong Kong cinema, here they are. The makers of Expect the Unexpected (director Johnnie To and producer Wai Ka-Fai) leave gritty crime realism aside for a moment and deliver up a glorious homage to the two-gun-blazing big-heart-pumping Hong Kong gunplay genre.”
–Mark Morrison, Hong Kong Movie Database
“Johnnie To’s direction again comes off nicely in an effectively grainy style, buoyed with a consistent score by Raymond Wong. Lai Ming is mainly restrained as Jack, which accelerates the scenes when he’s in action. Lau Ching Wan’s Martin is also an interesting survivalist character sporting a cool dress sense to boot. Their girlfriends, Fiona and YoYo (played by Leung and Mung) are well used in short, yet important and beautiful, roles. And Yuen Bun’s at times fierce action direction complements the good cast and coherently off-kilter script. Following on from earlier To and Wai productions, most notably Expect the Unexpected, this is overtly bleak and contemporary. Certainly worth seeing, in the cinema if possible – the subtitles are rather small.”
–Tim Youngs, Another Hong Kong Movie Page
“With gorgeous cinematography and a brain full of bad juju, A HERO NEVER DIES is like ninety minutes in the sauna with a voluble psycho. Lau Ching-Wan and Leon Lai-Ming (FALLEN ANGELS) are hitmen on opposite sides of a gang war until the war is over and they’re tossed aside like trash.
But dinosaurs like this refuse to die, and with an orchestral version of “Sukiyaki” twanging in the background the film attains spaghetti western grandeur as they both come back from the grave to settle everybody’s hash. John Woo created the heroic bloodshed genre with THE KILLER and Johnnie To spit in his eye with A HERO NEVER DIES— equal parts genre worship and genre explosion.”
–Grady Hendrix, Subway Cinema
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