10 Most Imaginative Shots On Film

4. The Hospital Shootout - Hard Boiled

As insanely ambitious and impressive as that faux-single take from Children of Men is, John Woo didn't have the luxury of blending shots together with CGI back in 1992 when shooting his action classic Hard Boiled.

The movie's climactic action sequence sees heroes Tequila (Chow Yun-fat) and Alan (Tony Leung) blasting their way through a hospital, with a near-three-minute chunk of the scene unfolding over a single unbroken take.

There are no digital tricks here: Woo actually had his actors perform the scene in one shot, complete with dozens of squibs, exploding debris and broken glass flying everywhere.

Tequila and Alan enter an elevator mid-way through the sequence in order to head to the next floor, but Woo actually used the same floor for all of the shootout, giving the crew just 30 seconds to re-dress the set and make it resemble another floor.

You'd never guess, though, and the sequence as a whole endures as a mind-blowing testament to the sheer power of filmmaking will.