John Woo's Hard Boiled Is Gay

(Welcome to Movies Are Gay, a Pride Month series where we explore the intentional, or accidental, ways LGBTQIA+ themes, characters, and creatives have shaped cinema.)

I try not to be one of those people that operate as if any instance of two men showing care and compassion for one another is inherently homoerotic because it's that line of thinking that makes it difficult for straight men to actually express genuine emotions and allows the patriarchy to continue to destroy us all. That said, Tequila (Chow Yun-fat) and Alan (Tony Leung) of John Woo's brilliant "Hard Boiled" are so in love they have to shoot guns about it. The final film Woo would make before he went to Hollywood, this pinnacle of Gun-Fu tells the story of one cop reeling from the loss of his partner and another working deep undercover that join forces to take down a corrupt group of arms dealers by any means necessary.

Those means? Why, a non-stop barrage of bullet ballet executed with such intensity that you swear you can feel your face melt off, of course! While "Hard Boiled" is iconic for its masterful approach to practical effects, stunt work, and gunplay, it's also an exercise in how macho posturing takes the place of vulnerability in masculine spaces. Guns are hidden in bird cages, bouquets of flowers, and even The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. There's an underlying message that machismo is necessary to appropriately embrace "feminine" expressions. There are few things more universal to the queer experience than the requirement of stifling or concealing your true feelings with a distractive presence.

Look, John Woo was absolutely not intending to tell a queer story with "Hard Boiled," but the intimacy he allows Tequila and Alan to share on-screen and the "will-they, won't they" tension of their life-or-death scenarios can't help but feel like romance. There are more than a few instances where the characters put a gun to the other's head in a face-off as if Woo is teasing the audience with the possibility of their lips locking when we least expect it. These men are China's answer to Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, after all, and if recent events have shown us anything, it's that the world would be much happier if they too just kissed.

If that wasn't enough, when the villainous Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong) finally has Tequila in his clutches, he humiliates him like a sadistic dom about his ability to "finish" instead of just killing him. It's a power play, sure, but it's also a super gay one. The climax of the film is roughly 40 minutes of high-octane action in a hospital where bullets fly, rooms explode, bad guys are thrown through glass, patients are evacuated en masse, and an entire nursery of newborns is scaled down a window to safety. It is the actioniest of all action films, and yet once you hear the phrase "queer read," it's impossible not to also see the film as a love story.

"Hard Boiled" is available to rent on VOD.