Ode to an Awesome Scene: Walken interogates Hopper in “True Romance” (contains spoilers)

Prewarning: This article contains spoilers for the film “True Romance” – watch the film before reading this, as obviously seeing the scene within the context of the entire film is very important. Also this movie uses some fairly strong racist language (much of which is within this scene) but is not, in any way, racist (the context, and reasoning for the language is revealed in this scene analysis if there were any doubts!). If you’ve already seen the movie then great – give the scene a rewatch and lets have a closer look at what makes it so great.

Review: “A Better Tomorrow”

John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow” is one of my favourite films, while it may not be the best example to illustrate his action artistry it illustrates his skill as a filmmaker and storyteller perfectly. The story itself is a classic emotional tale of gangster redemption: Mark and Ho are partners in crime, gangster bosses and best friends. Life is great (Ho even managing to conceal his profession from his cop brother Kit) until one day a job goes foul, Ho is banged up in prison and Mark gets crippled trying to avenge him. One prison montage later and Ho is released to find his father topped by rival gangsters, his brother hates his guts, and his best friend Mark is working for peanuts downtrodden by the same gang he was once a boss of. Now the two of them must get out and play it straight, but will the gang let them go and will Kit ever forgive Ho?