A Hero Never Dies

(Chan sam ying hung, Johnnie To, Hong Kong 1998, 86 min., 35mm, Cantonese w/subtitles)

Symmetry of Violence: Seven Films by Johnnie To. By the time he directed A Hero Never Dies, Johnnie To had been making films for full twenty years, and his vast oeuvre consisted of practically everything, from martial arts fantasies and soap operas to screwball comedies and romantic melodramas—all competent, entertaining accomplishments, showing a quiet, dedicated craftsman at work. But when he first tackled the genre of an action gangster film in 1998 with A Hero Never Dies, To’s truest talent emerged and the history of hardboiled genre opened a brand new chapter.

“Extreme, violent and unforgiving, A Hero Never Dies is a thriller in the form of a modern-day Western—a rarified, metaphysical no-man’s-land of brutal power play in which two professional killers are caught up in a ferocious, endless fight between rival triads. Johnnie To, a brilliant director of action films and a wizard at handling actors, centers the film emotionally on the two hired guns—men who leave parallel lives and are joined by the same destiny, and who end up transforming their mutual esteem into a tragic alliance.” – Far East Film Festival

Print courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive.