No Coração do Perigo

There was a film that I saw

Just the other day

And I sat there in awe

As it blew me away.

It was made by John Woo

Who is now a sell out

His fans he does screw

As the cash they shell out.

So get a six-pack

Full of cold, frosty beers

And then sit back

For Heroes Shed No Tears

Watch with devotion

This huge action feast

With enough blood to fill an ocean

To say the frickin' least

Our heroes in this tale

Are a group of Mercs

Who blast folks all to hell

'Specially drug lord jerks

There's fighting, there's stabbing

There's nuking, there's looting

There's biting, there's grabbing

There's puking, there's shooting

Punches are thrown

Black soldiers are eaten

Eyeballs are sewn

Children are beaten

A fight goes on

With nails and a tire

Our hero loses his son

Almost in a fire

There's tons of dying

But where the film falters

Is all the damn crying

Like it was Barbara Walters

When our hero does cry

It gets really lame

For the movie does lie

With its very own name

But please do not fret

It does little harm

And I'll make you a bet

About the scene with the arm

If you do not jump

When the dude gets the spears

Shoved straight up his rump

You've drunk too much beers

And if you don't find it nice

When the hut does explode

After the role of a dice

Then you're a humorless toad

So get off your fat ass

And get the hell out of here

Cuz you'll have a damn blast

With Heroes Shed No Tears

Ying Xiong Wei Lei/Heroes Shed No Tears(1986) was a pivotal feature in the early 80s for the director, John Woo. This was the first John Woo movie that included heavy use of gunplay. Although filmed in 1984/85, Heroes Shed No Tears(1986) did not get released until after the box office success of A Better Tomorrow(1986). Before this, Woo was mainly known for his comedies and Kung Fu flicks. Heroes Shed No Tears(1986) combines explosive action with some good martial arts.

Even if the film isn't as great or polish as John Woo's best, its still better then most of the ones that he has done in Hollywood. There are a few terrific set pieces within the movie. One, the opening gun battle with some drug runners. Two, the fight between the mercenaries and the Thai natives. Three, the martial arts fight between Eddy Ko and Ching Ying Lam.

It was one of the few war films besides Eastern Condors(1987) and Bullet in the Head(1990) to come out of Hong Kong. Ying Xiong Wei Lei(1986) is a precursor to John Woo's Bullet in the Head(1990). The plot of the film is very similar to Eastern Condors(1987) in that both films deal with mercenaries who are sent to Southeast Asia on a secret mission. Heroes Shed No Tears is the most grim and nihilistic of all John Woo movies(that includes Bullet in the Head). Its in the tradition of films like Aguirre:The Wrath of God(1974), The Deer Hunter(1978), and Apocalypse Now(1979).

Heroes Shed No Tears(1986) is a modern day retelling of the Lone Wolf & Cub comics. The relationship between Eddy Ko's soldier and his son has the same fatalistic bond that was present with Ogami Itto and his son, Daigoro. Its the closest thing that John Woo has ever come to doing a Lone Wolf & Cub feature. There is a scene that's right out of Lone Wolf & Cub(involves a child who covers himself in a mudhole in order to avoid being burned alive in a fire). The big influence for the one sequence is a similar sequence from Lone Wolf & Cub:Baby Cart in Peril(1973).

Ching Ying Lam is very convincing as the cruel and sadistic Vietnamese officer. The torture scene involving Eddy Ko is the most brutal one ever done by Woo. Heroes Shed No Tears(1986) has many traits that would become part of the Heroic Bloodshed genre in Hong Kong. Has its share of fogish atmosphere and stylish cinematography. The fight near the end of the movie would be done again in the terrible Mission:Impossible 2(2000)(there was also a exact scene in Strike of Death{1975}).

This is a strange movie. It starts in what seems like the climax of a movie we didn't see and picks up from there to give us a kind of men in mission movie, where the mission already happened... So this group of Rotten Magnificent Basterds has to escape, and through the journey they pick up a kid and his mother to give us some emotional connection. All of director Woo's trademarks are present with one noticeable exception, no doves! But if you want extreme violence in slow motion, lots of explosions, lots of very forced emotional manipulation with the kid and the girls, and an enormous body count, this is the movie for you. I was kind of surprised with the violence here and there's also a psychedelic sex scene that feels very out of place as John Woo usually stays clear of such scenes, not to mention a very bizarre gambling scene that comes out of nowhere. In conclusion a very raw early movie by John Woo, that has its charm but is very unpolished and remembered more for its oditties than its merits.

I can suspend a lot of disbelief, but not unlimited disbelief. Some of the things done by good and bad guys alike here just went a step too far.

That being said, if you're looking for plenty of John Woo shoot-em-up action presented within a fairly short runtime, I think Heroes Shed No Tears delivers. It's very direct, and quite scrappily made in parts, but a good deal of the big set pieces prove to be visceral and engaging.

It's ultimately a little disposable, and I feel like his 1990 film Bullet in the Head scratches a similar itch, but much more effectively. Yet this still delivers for fans of Woo, and honestly rode the line between a 3/5 and a 3.5/5 for me throughout (but I still think I'm going to round down here, at the end of the day).

Version: Cantonese audio, English subtitles (by SBS)

While watching the first scene of 'Heroes Shed No Tears':

Me: "Wow, I wonder how much the producers spent on explosions in that 5 minutes alone?"

My Friend: "Why is he carrying two machine guns?"

Me: "Why not?"

Later:

My friend: "Do you understand this?"

Me: "I understand machine-guns and explosions."

My friend: "I don't get it, but those cadavers fly a lot..."

Got the idea yet? I think 'Heroes Shed No Tears' was Woo's first film in the explosive style has since become famous for. I've seen some of his early kung-fu and comedy movies, but this is earliest Woo film I've seen where there were more explosions than words spoken in the movie. Awesome.

Chan Chung (Eddy Ko) leads a group of Chinese mercenaries in capturing a Thai drug-lord. Capturing him easily enough, the Chinese mercenaries find themselves on the run from angry drug-runners, a corrupt Thai army unit (whose officer is missing an eye thanks to Chung), and a group of native hunters hired by the Thai soldiers. Ohohoh, there'll be plenty of blood and explosions before this one is half over.

Essentially, 'Heroes Shed No Tears' is an old kung-fu film, replacing kung-fu with explosives and machine guns. There's a hell of a lot of people shooting and blowing stuff up, much like the old kung-fu films where there was a hell of a lot of kung-fu, and not much else. Most of the time that may have been used to develop the plot is used to blow stuff up, which I guess does kind of further the plot by allowing the characters to move to the next scene, blow something up, and then move to the scene after that. Most of the characters are cannon fodder, while Chung and his son play out the movie as if it were 'Lone Wolf with Cub', replacing swords with guns. Awesome

'Heroes Shed No Tears' is so mindlessly violent that even the most hardcore might get bored after a while, but it was so explosively compelling and awesome enough to entertain me. Woo fans should really check this out - 8/10

Awesome count: The word 'awesome' was used three times in this review.