A HERO NEVER DIES (1998)
Director: Johnnie To
Starring: Lau Ching-wan, Leon Lai, Fiona Leung, Yoyo Mung
98 minutes, color, 35mm
in Cantonese with English subtitles

"The initial concept is based on what the market wants, plus our consensus on casting. A Hero Never Dies, for example. From the begining, we agreed that there was a market for hero films. We also wanted Leon Lai and Lau Ching-wan and we talked to them. That was how it got started: hero film, Leon Lai, and Lau Ching-wan." - Wai Ka-fai

"Profoundly pessimistic, A Hero Never Dies is the bleakest work in the canon of Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai, and Patrick Yau, the final chapter in the three progressively gloomy films made within the span of one year ­ the other two being The Longest Nite and Expect the Unexpected..."
- Sam Ho, critic

A spaghetti western through Hong Kong eyes, A Hero Never Dies starts with hitman Jack (pop superstar Leon Lai, essentially reprising his role from Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels) visiting a fortune teller in Thailand with his boss. "Tell me," Jack murmurs, a gleaming colt .45 in his hand, "if you can see the future, am I going to shoot you or not?" The fortune teller can't give a satisfactory answer and gets a hole through the ankle. Leon strides outside and he and his boys swagger over to the swaying palms and relieve themselves en masse.

Same fortune teller, later that day. This time it's hitman Martin (Lau Ching-wan in a role that requires him to look like a Las Vegas cowboy pimp) visiting with his boss. Looking at the fortune teller's foot-wound he starts to giggle,"Can you tell me," he says, drawing his gleaming Glock, "if you're going to get shot twice today?" The fortune teller has a conniption, and gets shot in his other foot. Martin strides outside and he and his boys relieve themselves against the same palm trees as Jack and his boys while Raymond Wong's Morricone-esque anthem (50's pop hit "Sukiyaki" rescored for full-on orchestral thunder) surges up on the soundtrack. These two rival hitmen haven't even met and already they've bonded.

If you've been paying attention to Hong Kong movies you already know the drill: two men duke it out, each having a grudging respect for the other, both are betrayed by bad bosses and they unite to take on those who'll keep them down, striding across the horizon like manly legends on their way to Valhalla. Except this time, it's Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai at the helm and just when you think you know everything about this movie, they steer it into deeper, darker waters.

A series of tenebrous gunfights between Martin and Jack's gangs are brought to a sudden halt when the two rival bosses decide to join forces to form one giant, super-evil gang. Their first blackhearted act is hang Jack and Martin, symbols of their rivalry, out to dry. And then things turn really grotesque. Fate is at its blackest and most engulfing here, and surprisingly, Jack and Martin seem content to rot away, cut off by someone higher up on the foodchain. It's the women in their lives (Fiona Leung and Yoyo Mung) who demonstrate their ferocity in the face of overwhelming odds, refusing to take this indignity lying down, and it's their heroism that's at the heart of this movie.

Like someone in a sauna who won't stop showing you his scars, this is a movie of fascinating horror, each scene more intense and heart-stopping than the last. Simultaneously an act of genre worship and genre explosion, Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai manage to have their heroes and eat them, too. With Raymond Wong's score ringing in your ears, and the image of these seemingly unkillable studs strutting back from the grave to settle everyone's hash with their warm, hogleg pistols the iconography worms its way into your brain, and once it's there Johnnie To does evil things with it.

Dark old swamp magic at its most baroque, this movie sinks its teeth into you and won't let go. You can laugh at the mandom on display, or you can let the pure pathos chill your spine. Either way, this movie is the culmination of Wai Ka-fai and Johnnie To's collaboration and as such it represents the furthest point on the spectrum of despair that they've spent years mapping out.