Retro Film Review: Heroes Shed No Tears (1984)

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(Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

Most fans of John Woo tend to agree that the filmmaker's Hollywood opus is significantly inferior to the cult stylish gangster films he had been making in Hong Kong. Yet, those films represents only a fraction of John Woo's Hong Kong career - before his triumph with A Better Tomorrow John Woo made plenty of rather forgettable titles belonging to the kung fu or comedy genre. Even his first foray in the more mainstream action territory, 1984 war film Heroes Shed No Tears, represents something of a disappointment.

Heroes Shed No Tears shares the setting with Rambo 2, Uncommon Valor, Missing in Action and other Hollywood films that tried to cash on resurrected American patriotism and desire to symbollically re- fight Vietnam War. Motives of the protagonist, Chang Chung a.k.a. "Chinaman" (played by Eddie Ko) and his merry band of mercenaries - are somewhat different. They are hired by one of the Asian governments to track and capture one of Southeast Asia's drug lords and bring him to justice. They manage to capture the general, but the drug lord's cohorts are quite determined to liberate their leader and begin merciless pursuit across the jungle. Chang Chung, whose team includes his little son and sister, tries to evade them and crosses paths with two other factions – local tribesmen and the group of Vietnamese border guards led by sadistic commander (played by Ching-Ying Lam). Subsequent clashes led to the unholy alliance between the drug smugglers, tribesmen and Vietnamese soldiers – all determined to track and kill mercenaries.

Heroes Shed No Tears had been originally made in 1984 and remained shelved until the success of A Better Tomorrow turned John Woo into hot commodity. It is easy to understand why this film remained shelved, since at times it seems almost undistinguishable from the variety of cheap Rambo clones that were coming from Asian countries at those times. Another reason why this film shouldn't be considered success is John Woo's lack of experience with action scenes that involve gunplay and even more apparent lack of experience with characterisation. The plot is totally incoherent and the viewer should pay a lot of attention to actually know what is going on. Confusion is even greater because of some absurd subplots that have probably spawned from John Woo's lame attempt to provide this film with some kind of comic relief. The script is not helped by some of absurdities (tough mercenary has family living next door to the people he is supposed to fight) that at times give Heroes Shed No Tears almost surreal feeling.

The only thing that this film shares with latter and better known parts of John Woo's opus is the violence. Not only the amounts but the nature of the violence is such that many of the viewers could be disturbed, especially those accustomed to sanitised PG-13 world of modern Hollywood action films. In this film people are killed in extremely unpleasant ways, all displayed in graphic detail, while those who (usually only temporary) escape such fate must deal with rape and unimaginable torture. Even more disturbing in this film is presence of little child in the middle of this murderous mayhem, and John Woo clearly indicates that the Hollywood rules about survival of children and damsels in distress don't apply here. With such massive bloodletting man viewers would probably pay little attention to few brief scenes featuring nudity – something usually not associated with John Woo's opus. Although the bloodbath of Heroes Shed No Tears seems to be its own purpose, there are some signs that there was something more beneath the surface, especially the episode with American deserter and his little utopia - some kind of weird homage to Apocalypse Now. However, low budget and John Woo's still not properly developed skills are reasons why Heroes Shed No Tears should be recommended only to the most fanatical admirers of that filmmaker. The rest shouldn't shed a tear if they miss this one.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on November 26th 2002)

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