Paul wrote:
<<Woo always films the characters reloading the guns
but, when it comes to editing the scene, he finds the
reloading scenes interrupt the flow, so he edits them
out!>>
That's half the fun of Woo films, the inexhaustible guns and
the timing of when they finally do run out. I remember the
first HK film I saw, The Killer, at a filmfest. For a while,
none of us in the audience seemed to know what to make of it,
whether we should laugh or take it seriously (of course, as
with Sergio Leone films, the answer is both). Finally,
something pretty far over the top happened, the audience let
out a collective, combined laugh and sigh of relief and
everyone was on the same wavelength, could relax and enjoy
the rest of the film. Similarly with Hardboiled -- Chow
Yun-Fat stands gun in face to gun in face (a standard Woo
iconographic moment) with a man he thinks is a crook, he
pulls the trigger and it clicks on an empty shell, the
six-shooter just does not have that 151st bullet. The entire
audience cracked up. It's like you're in on a joke with the
director. Good stuff.
And I find it hard to believe that a man as movie-referential
as Woo, who claims to have learned how to hold a gun by
watching Alain Delon, is even worried about the
verisimilitude of inserting reloading scenes. Plus, as many
bullets as are expended, adding the reloadings would double
the length of his films. Although there were a number of
those in Face/Off, now that I think about it, but it seemed
to work the way Hill used it in Butch and Sundance, show them
reloading enough times, the audience will take it for
granted, so they won't worry about it when you abuse the
bullet count near the end.
Mark
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