6. Hospital Shootout - Hard Boiled
Hard Boiled was a seat-of-your-pants production in every aspect, but that didn't stop it completely revolutionising the landscape of action movies forever. The climactic shootout takes place in a hospital, with Tony (Tony Leung) and Inspector Tequila (Chow Yun-fat) blasting their way through hordes of enemies in a single take, which includes a trip into an elevator to catch a breather. Reportedly, the scene was to unfold as any conventional shootout scene would, with a lot of editing and shot transitions, but the crew had become long tired, so director John Woo opted to cut everyone a break...by turning it into a single-take sequence. What's truly amazing about the scene is how meticulously planned and composed it all comes across as, despite the fact that it wasn't even the original plan, and lax health-and-safety on set resulted in Leung going to hospital after
real glass went into his eyes. Was the result worth it? For Mr. Leung, who knows? For action fans the world over, absolutely.
How It Changed Cinema: It raised the bar and changed the game as far as action cinema was concerned. An elevation of John Woo's signature style for sure, as soon as audiences got an eyeful of this, Western filmmakers had a lot of catching up to do.