Hard-Boiled 2: STRANGLEHOLD (man this is going to rock!)

I don't see a thread for this yet, so if it's been posted already, "So Sorry". If there hasn't then read up on this...



In-Depth about STRANGLEHOLD


See the movie teaser here:
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/749/749071/vids_1.html

This news makes me want to un-earth my Hong Kong gun crazy days (i.e. my DVDs that have lied dormant for some time) as I remember joking with my best friend Black Hammer once that the gaming world wouldn't be complete until John Woo made a video game starring Chow Yun-Fat. Now it looks like it's finally happened. FUCKIN A! ***All the more reason to buy a PS3

Merc, I love you to death, but no. Fuck no.

This is just more proof that John Woo has lost what little shreds of dignity he had retained from his 80s glory days and has continued to let America corrupt him to the point where he cannot be saved, even with a sequel to one of his greatest movies.

sQuareh4t3r said:

Merc, I love you to death, but no. Fuck no.

This is just more proof that John Woo has lost what little shreds of dignity he had retained from his 80s glory days and has continued to let America corrupt him to the point where he cannot be saved, even with a sequel to one of his greatest movies.

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Oh come on man. Did you see that trailer?

John Woo's trying to fix his image after the crap he has released while in Hollywood by going in a different direction and letting YOU as the gamer be in control of one of the coolest actors (more to the point action stars) of all time do what he did best and all else copied. I can understand your being skeptical, but I believe if the game is actually done right, and I'd say they have more than enough time between now and the fall of 2006 to get this right... well, let's just say it could knock all the copy cats out there on their asses for good. I always embraced the MAX PAYNE games as an "okay" substitute for a JW movie w. CYF, but to be able to go there deciding who dies, and in what method... well call me a sucker but I'm buying it.

...now of course I'd have rather John Woo with private funds saved up from several movies got with Chow Yun-Fat and made the premise of this game into an actual Hollywood/Hong Kong gun movie (and the title's not bad), and CYF himself back in '98 when I hung out with him told me at the time: "No Hard-Boiled 2... yet" but it looks like it is happening, just as a video game. The fact that most Americans here really didn't take to him the way they did with Jet Li didn't phase him one bit, but it sucked for us cult fans that there's not more CYF flicks and Bulletproof Monk had me yelling out WHY? in the cinema. This project might just unfuck all of that. I guess I still have a little "Hopeful" in me after all. I remember at the time he had mentioned (CYF & Terrance Chang @ that "Replacement Killers" Premeire in Chicago '98) about doing a movie with Bruce Willis and an unknown female to be called Full Circle, but I guess that never got made. Projects like this to me are just interesting, and if Vin Diesel was able to get Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay to be as good as it was for a movie tie-in... well you never know man, you never know.

I'm so drunk. I can't read all of that right now, dude.

I promise you I'll read it all tomorrow and come up with something snappy in reply.

When I saw the trailer during E3 coverage, it was just a link called Stranglehold. Nothing was posted about it yet but when I watched it, I immediately thought Hard Boiled.

This can be absolutely amazing, but I'm with sQuareh4t3r in being a little skeptical. Although I'm not completely discounting the game, there are a lot of things that can go right and wrong at this point.

Here's hoping John Woo starts kicking serious ass again, and I think Chow Yun-Fat can be the one who does it.

Seriously, that trailer does rock hard, though, whether the game sucks or not.

GoSpits said:

When I saw the trailer during E3 coverage, it was just a link called Stranglehold. Nothing was posted about it yet but when I watched it, I immediately thought Hard Boiled.

This can be absolutely amazing, but I'm with sQuareh4t3r in being a little skeptical. Although I'm not completely discounting the game, there are a lot of things that can go right and wrong at this point.

Here's hoping John Woo starts kicking serious ass again, and I think Chow Yun-Fat can be the one who does it.

Seriously, that trailer does rock hard, though, whether the game sucks or not.

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Yeah it does have a good chance to be a SHIT game, the way NAMCO ass fucked Dead To Rights 2 (and I hated the play control of the original after getting used to Max Payne) thus I see both of your skepticism. I guess deep down I just want John Woo to deliever something (ANYTHING) at this point that is as good as his Hong Kong masterpieces of (The Killer, Hard-Boiled, A Better Tomorrow) and if by bringing out a video game is going to be what does it, hey I'm all over that. Not to mention getting to control a Tequila Popper drinking CYF, sliding down those stairs shooting two .45s would be a hoot. If anything I'd like to see/hear Michael Gibbs do the soundtrack for this game like he did for the movie...


Yes that's actually what his signature looks like ^

His fusion of Jazz with electronica worked well in the original movie, though sadly Tequila's Clarinet solo in the opening of the movie was missing on the OST. I think Gibb's music would work better than if they try to go the route of making the usual Hip Hop stuff that gets worked into the Hong Kong Woo Inspired movies Hollywood has produced in recent years. *Also the guns should have that HK edge to them, for example, ever notice that Tequila's Shotgun (especially in the Car Wharehouse shootout) sounds more like a cannon going off than an actual shotgun? Little things like this would be great. The thing that has always stumped me about HARD-BOILED was the ending regarding Tony Leung Chiu Wai's character of "Tony". Is the scene of him dropping all those oragami cranes into the water an analogy that he is truly dead and went on into the afterlife forever cruising in his boat... or did it imply that he's not actually dead but official documentation lists him a deceased and he's living his life free of violence? If it's the latter then somehow Tequila and Tony's path should cross again if even briefly. These are the things that I wonder if even John Woo himself is fleshing out with MIDWAY to make the game all the more well rounded.

I don't know weather to jump for joy or cry.

I fucking love CYF & John Woo but as stated before it could go either way.

God knows I've been dreaming of a sequal to HB since I first saw it. I always wanted it to be a trilogy with Woo directing all 3 installments which sould have happened with the A Better Tomarrow saga.

Any word on weather or not the game will be in Chinese w/ subtitles?(crosses fingers)

Like most in this thread have said I don't know if I should jump for joy or cry bloody murder, I fell in love with CYF and John Woo with HB. I loved Max Payne and Dead To Rights( thanks for fucking me over with DTRII Namco ) and always thought that they where cool stuff inspired by Mr. Woo. This diffinatley adds to me wanting a PS3 and I'll really hope if this works that John decides to stop trying to go "Hollywood" and go back to what made most of us love him in the first place.


This pic fuckin' ownes though



And like Terry mentioned I wonder if they'll have it in chinese with subtitles since Sony did that with Jet Li's game

Yung Burnout said:

And like Terry mentioned I wonder if they'll have it in chinese with subtitles since Sony did that with Jet Li's game

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I doubt this game is going to be done with CYF talking in Cantonese w. English subs. If anything the game will be in Chinese when in Hong Kong and then in English when in America. That's the best we can hope for. But in order to really get the masses into it I'm thinking the whole game will be in English with CYF speaking his parts in English. The fact that Rise To Honor did the subtitle thing was great, only that game didn't deliver the goods to well, thus based off that JW & Company might not want to take that risk. *Because even with as open minded as ppl are now, ppl still hate reading subtitles it seems. They'll make an exception for things like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but that's the exception and not the rule. Thus if done in Cantonese w. Subs and let's say 85% of the game is in Hong Kong, then I don't see the game selling to all but the cult/die-hards of the HK Gun genre and CYF/JW fans alike. Though I think it be a good idea to do a little of both.

I wonder where Squarehater is by now?

The thing is it's not really CY-F and John Woo's involvement that worry me about this one - it's Midway.
Lika Merc mentioned, Namco really blew Dead to Rights, which had loads of potential in my opinion. Midway has really been hit and miss with a lot of titles and until we see more, I think a lot of us are going to be holding out breaths.

graveyard BOMP

I've been salivating over this game for two years but just got it this week.

Fucking kickass game; everything a Woo/HB/Max Payne fan could ask for plus more. The sheer mayhem you can unleash in this game is astounding.

I got the PS3 Collector's Edition since it has an HD version of Hard Boiled (!!!) included on the disc. It does run a little choppier than the 360 version but I actually like that as 60FPS makes me sick (plus the PS3 version seems more "film-like" due to the lower framerate). I guess some people have the sound fuck up but fortunately I didn't have a single hiccup.

I guess the game is being developed into a movie, but it has a lot going against it: no Woo, no CYF, and it's not a proper sequel to Hard Boiled like the game is...aka shit cashin that Midway greenlighted during its dying days to generate capital.

edit: Merc was right on the fucking money too, lol squarehater

Jesus, that's one hell of a bump.


I remember enjoying the game a little bit but being shocked that the multiplayer servers were empty only weeks after the game came out.


So, is the hard boiled movie included a Blu-ray? I thought it was just a dvd...

Stranglehold was not that good of a game.

It was alright for $19.99 new or less money than that. It really brought nothing new to the genre and only managed to reaffirm the fact that trying to continue a story from a movie in a video game is a terrible idea.

John Woo would have been better off actually just filming a live action version of this story, and it probably would have done better in theaters.

BigTinz said:

Jesus, that's one hell of a bump.


I remember enjoying the game a little bit but being shocked that the multiplayer servers were empty only weeks after the game came out.


So, is the hard boiled movie included a Blu-ray? I thought it was just a dvd...

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Yeah, now the PS3 servers aren't working...I assume they got axed when Midway went under. Oh well, I'll have to get the 360 version for that eventually.

Hard Boiled isn't a separate Bluray but is included on the CE Bluray game disc. You access it from the main game menu. It's the Dragon Dynasty DVD version but supports 720p/1080i, which is exclusive to this release. You can select the original Canto w/English subs or the English dub. It's a nice version of the movie but since it's played from the game menu it uses a proprietary movie viewer instead of the standard PS3 one...this means that you get play/pause/stop and chapter skip only. No menus, no extras and most frustratingly no rewind/fastforward. It's a cool treat for HB/Woo fans since it's the only HD version but I'd hold onto the DVD versions for the special features.

The game is excellent from what I've played so far...the story is great for pushing the action along and the gameplay is fucking phenomenal. Sure it's not the deepest game in the world but it's more than serves its purpose for me...running around as CYF and blasting the shit out of anything in your way, living or not. I especially like how you're told the monetary value of all the shit you destroy per level.

I sat on the game for months, before I ever played it. Multiplayer, even on 360, was DEAD by the time I logged in.