Throughout the decades, there has been an evolution of film.  In 1984, the film The Terminator was released. The film follows Sarah Connor, a woman who is warned by a man from the future, Kyle Reese, that her son leads the revolution in a war on androids and one android, the T-800, has also sent back in time to kill her to prevent her son from being born so he would be unable to lead the revolution. Eight-years later and seven-thousand miles away in Hong Kong, the film Hard Boiled was released. In Hard Boiled, an undercover cop by the name, “Tequila” (as in the alcoholic beverage) works to take down a gang that turns out to already have an undercover officer in it named Alan. Throughout the film, the two work to take down the gang without Alan being discovered.

The Terminator was a very conventional film. The budget was 8.4 million-dollars, compared to the years average budget of 3.25 million-dollars. In addition, the cast of the film was pretty well known. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played the T-800, had already been known for body building and his starring role in Conan. The story was very clear and it had a simple resolution.

Hard Boiled had both conventional and unconventional elements. The cast was very popular with Chow Yun-fat, who played Tequila, holding a reputation of having been known for appearing in several other films including A Better Tomorrow, also directed by John Woo. The rest of the films elements were unconventional however. While I couldn’t find the average budget for a 1992 film, the budget of hard boiled was 4.5 million-dollars which only works out to costing about 8.2-million dollars today.  The box office was only the equivalent of about 2 million-dollars for the time, making it a box office blunder. Finally, the plot was still easy to follow and enjoyable to watch.

One of the major conflicts people have with The Terminator is whether the movie is still good or if it has aged poorly.  I think the reason a lot of people love the film is the nostalgia factor the film provides while it’s effects, visuals and stories have aged poorly. This premise is explained well with this review from the website, Medium.The review summarizes it’s statements, saying:

I would recommend this film only because it is a classic that is referenced in numerous popular culture pieces today, and because it’s a relatively good time, but drags on for an unnecessary amount of time. I’m becoming more and more convinced that Cameron is only as good as our memories are bad.

The author, Jeffrey Clemmons, explains that the only reason people like this film is because they want to like the film due to having positive memories with the film. I think most people have experiences with films that they formed an emotional connection to that makes the film more special than the film really was. I think if you watch The Terminator today with no knowledge of the film, it is just as bad as any other boring 80s movie.

Take for instance the following scene from the film:

At around the 4:00 mark of the scene, the effects of the film become very apparent with Arnold Schwarzenegger being replaced with a mask that is very obvious. While they didn’t have any better alternatives for effects in the film, it is very distracting from the rest of the action taking place in the film.  A review from 1984, when the film came out, argues this, stating, ” Even in that condition he keeps on marching. The special effects are good enough to allow this skeleton a distinctively lumbering gait that matches Mr. Schwarzenegger’s own.” (Maslin, 1984). The effects, which were one of the main arguments in favor of the film, have in turned turn poor which takes away the positive aspects of the film.  While I do not think the Terminator is still a good film, it still had a very important contribution to the film industry with it being the first big film made by director James Cameron. This essay by John Wills, Director of American Studies at the University of Kentucky,  exemplifies this, stating, “The Terminator” proved a breakthrough movie for Cameron, who went on to direct “Aliens” (1986),“Titanic” (1997), Hollywood’s first $200 million picture and winner of 11 Oscars, and “Avatar” (2009). ”

The only discussions people seemed to have about Hard Boiled were about were whether or not it was John Woo’s best work or not. Given that I have not seen any of John Woo’s other work, I have nothing to compare it to so I can only say if I thought this film was good or bad.  Personally, I strongly disliked the film.  The movie being in another language made it hard for me to handle watching the film. I knew that wasn’t a fair standard to judge the movie on though so instead I chose to base it on others reviews. In a paper that came out from the website, Joblo,  the writer states, “When it comes to John Woo movies, HARD BOILED is king. I know some will argue for THE KILLER or possibly FACE/OFF. Those aren’t bad choices, either, but for me, HARD BOILED represents the absolute standard of his work, the complete and fully realized John Woo film.”  I agree that John Woo put a lot of heart into the film. In an interview with Woo back when the film came out, he said,

“In my childhood, I have seen too much violence. My family was very poor, and I grew up in a slum, a bad neighborhood, and I have seen people get killed and people betray each other. And, also, we have met the biggest liars in Hong Kong, in 1967 — the Communist Party was making a huge riot, a lot of people got killed in the street, a policeman was killed in the street — and also I saw a lot of news about the Vietnam War, and Cambodia, where the Communist Party chopped off millions of peoples’ hands and other things. I was so mad and so sad.”

By relating the story to his personal experiences, Woo allowed the film to have a lot more heart to it than it would otherwise.

Both films used action to drive the plot. As you can see in both of these trailers, the trailers for these films were filled entirely with action.

Barbara Scharres said, “As 1997 approached, Hong Kong audiences seemed to crave images of violation. Action films became more raw and graphic, and several truly grotesque, slasher-derived sub-genres became popular. ” By including action, the filmmakers made these trailers to reach out to get more people to want to watch the film.

By using action, the filmmakers got people to want to watch the movies that they put hard work into; however, in The Terminator, the movie was made soley for entertainment while in Hard Boiled it seems that it was made to tell the directors life story.