Image via Arrow Video
Published Jan 29, 2026, 12:00 PM EST
Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
Nearly everything in this world eventually ends, but Hard Boiled is one thing that never does. John Woo's 1992 classic returned to theaters in January as part of a larger retrospective celebrating the legendary director's best Hong Kong action films. The collaboration between Shout! Studios, Hong Kong Cinema Classics, and GKIDS marked the largest North American rollout the film has ever had, exposing more viewers than ever to a masterpiece that combines all the hallmarks Woo became known for in The Killer and A Better Tomorrow into one over-the-top, explosive package. Now, the new 4K remaster that hit the big screen is now coming home in March through Arrow Video, and to celebrate, Collider can exclusively share a new trailer that highlights the mix of action and drama that made the film so influential.
The footage is all style, opening on a firefight with Chow Yun-Fat sliding around and busting through doors with guns akimbo. It's an illustration of the dangerous world of Hard Boiled and the gung-ho methods of Chow's heroic, if insubordinate, inspector "Tequila" Yeun. Although the trailer puts the action first, showing the "spicy" Tequila ignoring orders and blasting through all the enemies in his path, with plenty of explosions and slo-mo to boot, it also sets up the cop's story as he tracks down the triad assassin who spared him and stumbles upon a much more dangerous web of deception. That assassin is Ah-Long (Tony Leung), an undercover cop recruited by the ruthless crime boss Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong), who's in charge of Hong Kong's extensive gun-smuggling business. When Tequila gets taken off Wong's case after the death of his partner in the teahouse shootout, he links up with Ah-Long to stop the kingpin's schemes before the situation boils over into all-out war.
Hard Boiled was remastered using the original camera negative and was retranslated from its native Cantonese to make it not just the best looking and sounding version of the film yet, but the most accurate depiction for English-speaking audiences. As Woo's final Hong Kong film before he made the jump to Hollywood and projects like Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2, the wild cop epic holds a special place in his filmography that the 4K and Blu-ray re-release will look to immortalize. Woo was a pioneer in his use of slo-mo and gun-fu within massive, bonkers setpieces, and Hard Boiled may be among his most over-the-top features. From the many shootouts to a daring maternity ward rescue mission that nearly killed Chow for real, it's an example of the director pushing the action genre to its limits.
Arrow's remastered home release comes in a limited-edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray package adorned with new artwork and featuring a poster by Tony Stella for collectors. Inside are also six new art cards and a collector's booklet packed with new writing by Priscilla Page and an interview with Woo. The real meat of it all, however, is on the two discs themselves. Featured alongside the remastered film are two new and two archival commentary tracks, nine new interviews with Woo, Wong, and screenwriters Chan Hing-Ka and Gordon Chan, among others, archival interviews with Chow and Leung, deleted scenes, and much more. All of it comes together to provide an item made for display that also provides a ton of insight into Woo's classic and its impact.
The new limited edition Hard Boiled 4K and Blu-ray release hits shelves on March 30. Check out the new trailer in the player above.
English (US) ·