Daily Texan 11/22/1993

Another Woo-dunit: 'Heroes Shed No Tears' a killer film

BYLINE Chris Baker

Fans of good action movies should be pleased by director John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears, which was first released in 1986, even though it only shows a hint of the grandeur of Woo's later efforts (The Killer, Hard Boiled, etc.).

This early Woo film is finally coming to American theaters because of the success of the director's first American film, Hard Target, and the growing awareness of his brilliant Hong Kong features.

In this standard gunplay/chase feature, character development is minimal and the plotting is occasionally amateurish. Woo had not yet developed his skills as a screenwriter, but the cleverness of his grisly, hyperkinetic action sequences foretells his future successes, which have earned Woo a reputation as the greatest action director working today.

This gritty, enjoyable exercise concerns the attempts of a crack squad of Chinese mercenaries to bring a Thai drug lord to justice. The mercenaries carry out a successful raid on the drug lord's compound in the first of many brilliantly executed action sequences, and hurry to carry the kidnapped kingpin across the border. Our hero stops to rescue his wife and son from the clutches of vengeful henchmen bent on freeing their boss, and the chase is on.

The film devolves into a consistently enjoyable, episodic ramble after the frenetic opening. In this formless interlude, Woo displays the origins of his amazing talent for setting up involving, ultraviolent scenes that follow their own sprung logic.

Plot continuity returns with the introduction of a crazed, dope smoking American, a Vietnam vet with a huge cache of explosives, three concubines, and the scraggliest beard you've ever seen.

The predominant symbol in Heroes Shed No Tears is the human eyeball, and the audience is treated to numerous and significant twitches, winks, and blinks. And, of course, several unflinching depictions of grotesque injuries to the eye (something that also cropped up in The Killer). It is hard not to squirm and retch when the hero's eyes are stitched open and he is forced to gaze directly into the sun for hours. Woo chooses a subjective camera for this sequence, so the stitches come directly at the audience's eyes. It is an extremely harrowing (and wildly repugnant) scene that connoisseurs of the genre won't want to miss.

The final shootout at the American vet's hut rivals any American thriller. While this climactic sequence lacks the painstakingly intricate plotting of Woo's mature work, it's liberating to see glorious excesses of the sort of cheesy melodrama that the director would later use to such carefully controlled effect.

The sheer formal beauty may have you applauding at some of the more over-the-top effects, such as the exquisitely hideous moment when the bad guy howls inhumanly as a 3-foot geyser of blood spews skyward in a fine, pulsing mist from the ragged socket where his right eye used to be.

Heroes Shed No Tears also features some of the funniest subtitle glitches you are ever likely to see. The American characters actually speak English, but wildly divergent subtitles give us an alternate take on what we just clearly heard them say. For example, the crazed American's scream of "motherfucker!" is translated as "son of a bitch!" No fan of John Woo's later films should miss this campy extravaganza. It is a portrait of a major talent in development, and its failures are as much, if not more, fun than its achievements.

(three stars out of five)