20 Action Films From The 1990s You Must Watch

In his last Hong Kong film before his transition to Hollywood, John Woo wanted to create a film that glamorized the police instead of gangsters like his previous films. The end result was another classic film starring Chow Yun-fat and is considered the best film of Woo’s career.

Chow stars as the clarinet-playing police officer “Tequila” Yuen, who loses his partner in an attempt to arrest some gun smuggling gangsters. Enraged by his partner's death, Tequila executes the last surviving gangster. He is thrown off the case for his actions, but continues to hunt down the gang involved in the gun smuggling.

What follows is one brilliantly staged shootout after another, as Tequila uncovers multiple twists in the case and gets closer to the gang's leader. The stakes are almost as high as the body count as Woo does an incredible job at creating encounters that are fast-paced and chaotic, but at the same time, keeps the audience aware of what is going on.

Despite the film not being as commercially successful as Woo’s other films, it was received with overwhelming praise from western critics and remains as one of Hong Kong cinemas greatest export.