John Woo's Hong Kong library is finally getting a modern distribution

Esquire: John Woo's Movies Will Stream Very Soon. It's a Huge Deal.

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On April 28, Shout! Studios announced its summer 2025 rollout plans for its newly-christened label Hong Kong Cinema Classics. The new label, created to houses Shout!'s January acquisition of the vast Golden Princess film library, will debut with a slew of titles becoming available to watch digitally via VOD platforms on June 24, while its first physical release (as in, 4K Blu-ray discs) will release July 29.

The inaugural releases are a doozy, a murderer's row of the greatest action movies ever made during the Hong Kong New Wave, all remastered for the 4K era. Most are directed by the aforementioned Woo, who spent most of the 1990s in Hollywood as the director of cult classics such as Hard Target, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible II. Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, other revered auteurs of Hong Kong cinema, will have their movies available through the new label as well.

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Studio Release

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HONG KONG CINEMA CLASSICS | UPCOMING DIGITAL RELEASES
Action fans and martial arts and movie enthusiasts will relish these definitive releases of Hong Kong cinema masterpieces, available for digital download and on-demand across major digital entertainment platforms in the U.S. Presented by Shout! Studios, the first titles to be made available digitally in 4K include:

June 24, 2025 John Woo’s HARD BOILED in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

June 24, 2025 Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Sun Yueh, Danny Lee).

July 8, 2025 John Woo’s A BETTER TOMORROW in 4K (starring Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat), A BETTER TOMORROW II in 4K (starring Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat), and A BETTER TOMORROW III in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Ka-fai).

July 22, 2025 Tsui Hark’s PEKING OPERA BLUES in 4K (starring Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, Cherie Chung).

July 22, 2025 John Woo’s THE KILLER in 4K (starring Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee).

August 5, 2025 Tony Ching’s A CHINESE GHOST STORY (starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang),A CHINESE GHOST STORY II (starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang), and A CHINESE GHOST STORY III (starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Joey Wang).

August 19, 2025 John Woo’s BULLET IN THE HEAD in 4K (starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

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Hard Boiled

City on Fire

I did a rewatch of the Killer, which used to be my favorite movie, last weekend (on DVD). It's pretty crazy how influential that movie is looking back. It was my favorite movie in high school and early college and I was just getting into film (with a focus more on horror but I digress). The sprawling crime-based, character-driven action movie pretty much started with these movies out of Hong Kong in the late 80s/early 90s. Woo basically took Peckinpah and added modern style to it and with insane action set pieces.

You can't watch movies like Heat without seeing the influence from this era from Woo, and Heat is one of the most ripped-off films onward. Even movies that came a little later like Internal Affairs (2002) was literally ripped off by Scorsese with The Departed.

The one ting I will say that's interesting revisiting these movies is that the HK versions are much more tight and lean. The Americanized versions get another 40-45 minutes added on of overt exposition and fluff (often the romantic storylines forced in for American audiences).