Chow Yun Fat is probably one of the best action stars I’ve ever come across, and the thing I love about John Woo is his utter ability to bring the best out of Fat, regardless of the film. Woo’s crime drama “Hard Boiled” is similar in many ways. It’s about a hardened killer with demons outrunning a rebellious cop, but that’s not a caveat in any sense. Because at the end of the day “The Killer” is a rather fantastic piece of crime cinema that really warrants its place as a masterpiece. I’m sad to say I never gave Yun Fat too much of my attention in the past, but thanks to a friend passing along “Hard Boiled,” I’m suddenly very interested to see what else this man has up his sleeves.
I still don’t see why it’s so difficult to turn two of the coolest superheroes into a full fledged action franchise to this day. If anyone is more deserving of a movie franchise it’s The Green Hornet and his assistant/sidekick Kato, who, with the right director, can be turned into a blockbuster franchise that could easily be put in the same consideration as Batman.
So it’s come to this. After all these years following Bourne, after “The Bourne Identity” becoming one of my favorite action films of all time, we’re here at the tail end, and hopefully the last film of the franchise. And with it comes Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Paddy Considine; how can you beat a cast like this? You can’t. “The Bourne Ultimatum” is yet another fantastic entry into the series, and shocking enough: It breaks the rule that the third parts in franchises are terrible. “The Bourne Ultimatum” brings what the former films did.
