• Triumphant Last Hurrah for Chivalry by John Woo displays his early brilliance.
• John Woo is the best action movie director ever.
• The film Last Hurrah for Chivalry exhibits a great deal.

Triumphant Last Hurrah for Chivalry by John Woo displays his early brilliance. John Woo is the best action movie director ever.

Hard Boiled, The Killer, and A Better Tomorrow all contributed to putting Hong Kong—and Woo himself—at the forefront of elite action movies, solidifying the man’s status as one of the greats.

These movies, along with a few of his English-language ones (most notably the brilliantly ridiculous Face-Off with John Woo Travolta and Nic Cage), revealed a filmmaker for whom no stunt is too big, no death toll too high, and no gunfight too lavish. Woo’s martial arts film Last Hurrah for Chivalry demonstrated the director’s skill before any of these blood-and-bullet ballets had touched the retinas of action fans around the world. It’s a lean, mean action movie Last Hurrah featuring technically excellent action sequences that are connected by many of the themes that are essential to Woo’s films.

Chivalry, one of the director’s few historical films (his two most recent productions, Red Cliff and The Crossing, are elaborately dressed epics that are unquestionably worth seeing), was partially made as a tribute to Chang Cheh, a wuxia master and Woo’s cinematic instructor. Woo’s early films reflect the fact that he had previously assisted Chang on a number of successful productions, including the Shawscope kung-fu film Boxer from Shantung.

Although a comparison between Chang’s and Woo’s extreme brutality appears inescapable, few people possess Woo’s ability to make violence operatic. Although Woo’s body of work appears to be a logical continuation of Chang’s innovative filmmaking, it has just as much, if not more, influence on the state of action cinema.

The film Last Hurrah for Chivalry exhibits a great deal of the same talent that would eventually elevate several of Woo’s later films to such a position of awe. The movie establishes grandiose action sequences one after another in its opening scene and weaves them into a tricky, twisting story.

The evil Pak (Hoi Sang Lee) attacks Kao Peng’s (Lau Kong) estate on the day of his wedding in retaliation for a long-standing dispute between the two men’s dads. The celebrations are abruptly ended when fighting breaks out. Assasins scale the structure, and Pak’s numerous goons start a homicidal spree. As chaos breaks out, Kao Peng and his supporters raise their swords and fight back. A teahouse opening sequence from Hard Boiled comes to mind as everything is magnificently chaotic and action-packed from beginning to conclusion of the frame.

From there, the movie Last Hurrah merely keeps serving up flawless action while the plot starts to fall apart. Kao Peng sets out to find a swordsman with the ability to combat Pak in order to get revenge on him. Enter Tsing Yi, also known as “Green” (Damian Lau), a drunken assassin with no allegiance to anyone, and Chang (Wai Pak), a former master warrior who has put down his sword for a peaceful existence. There’s also the swordsman named Destiny (Fung Hak-on), who is ravenous for glory and jokes, “If someone touches my sword, he’ll meet his destiny.” Only time will tell who among the group will prove to be the best warrior. Their abilities will be put to the test, but that is the only thing that is definite.

Naturally, given it’s a Woo movie, the action scenes take up a significant amount of the movie Last Hurrah. The players are thrown into a series of fights during a raid on Pak’s headquarters near the conclusion, which has catchy choreography and stylish slow-motion views. One of the best-shot scenes in any wuxia is a four-minute long, bloody swordfight in the countryside in the middle of the movie. Chang and Destiny trade punches, leaping over one another and fighting in the dirt like savages against the backdrop of a lovely green forest. Meanwhile, Woo’s camera moves with a stunning fluidity, capturing the action with an exceptional grace.

The investment Woo made in the concepts that run through his subsequent work—friendship, honor, loyalty, and (of course) chivalry—is what really sets Last Hurrah for Chivalry apart. The two main characters in the movie, Green and Chang, get close as a result of their shared respect for one another’s abilities. The two guys are forced to consider their own senses of loyalty and honor as the connection grows stronger and turns into a true friendship. What does their friendship entail? What is expected of them?

Chang lives his life mostly free of the violence that formerly defined his work. Instead, he only flexes when it’s absolutely essential to beat up a street thug who was bullying some kids. To uphold and safeguard his sister’s honor, he beats up the man, which humorously begs the question of whether Chang is ironically and unwittingly dishonoring his family as a result. In the meantime, Green gives in to his drunkenness to calm his anxiety prior to an assassination. He’s on a pointless, violent, and destructive road that won’t get him anywhere. He kills the same criminal for not paying him after saving him from police custody.

Both characters can do a redemptive act in the movie’s concluding scene. Due of his allegiance to anyone he would consider a friend, Chang swears to exact revenge on Kao Peng. Chang is initially hesitant to assist, but Kao Peng’s deed of generosity persuades him to do so. Green, on the other hand, is not looking for atonement. He isn’t very interested in it. Instead, he is presented with an opportunity for redemption, and he accepts the challenge to show that individuals are capable of improvement.

Green appears to be the ideal model for Woo. Woo’s protagonists typically are imperfect, intensely emotional characters whose moral ambiguity is offset by their tremendous abilities. His career’s apparent meaninglessness is fundamentally rooted in an overwhelming loneliness that keeps him apart from other people. In order to survive, he hardens his attitude toward the outside world and seals himself off for safety. The main characters in Last Hurrah for Chivalry become unlikely friends who immediately bond passionately, much like in Hard Boiled or The Killer. Woo’s protagonists frequently put loyalty and friendship over self-interest. Green and Chang carry this out. Chang confesses to his pal in a supremely vulnerable moment, “I never take measures against my friends.” Green responds, a little cynically, “That’s why we’re both losers.”

In Woo’s best work, friendship and loyalty play such an important role, and in Last Hurrah for Chivalry, friendship is the center of the movie’s deeper meaning. The absence of friendship makes the world a cruel, perilous, and heartless place. It becomes so much more, something greater, something worth fighting for with it—along with empathy and kindness. As Green and Chang’s friendship grows, the two men discover a goal bigger than themselves. If they still have a taste for murder, that’s their prerogative, but at least this time they don’t have a selfish financial motive. Because friends fight for each other, one does so. One cannot watch helplessly as the other charges heedlessly towards peril. I am thankful that we met/while destroying mutual enemies with our swords, a nice and heartfelt song sings over a tragic freeze-frame over the movie’s last shot.

In addition to showcasing Woo in the beginning of his skill, Last Hurrah for Chivalry also acts as a wonderful bridge between tradition and contemporary. Here, style of John Woo is established by the glamorization of violence and an emotionally stirring storyline. While the 21st century has produced several superb wuxia revival movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, and Shadow, to mention a few), Hong Kong spent a large portion of the 1980s and 1990s focusing on the cop-and-gangster movies that Woo helped to pioneer.

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