It’s been 40 years since famed director John Woo made this cheerfully violent, gleefully bloody film that’s been restored to digital 2K, and now a release.

 Heroes Shed No Tears has stunts that range from laughter-inducing to wince-inducing and whatever’s in between those two.

 Although John Woo later became a genuine star director in the U.S., his work in his Asian homeland, starting in the 80s, served as a precursor to his trademark action tricks. They call this one his “first real film” after an apprenticeship in the low-budget minor leagues with a trail of B-films left behind.

Synopsis

Hong Kong action veteran Eddie Ko (The Mission, Lethal Weapon 4) stars as soldier-of-fortune Chan Chung, the leader of an elite Chinese commando force enlisted by the Thai government to capture General Samton, a powerful drug lord from the Golden Triangle. After a successful raid on the general’s headquarters, the mercenaries cross into Vietnam and encounter a barbaric colonel (Lam Ching Ying), who is determined to stop them at any cost. Now pursued by both Samton’s henchmen and the colonel’s troops, the heroes flee for the border of Thailand, outmanned and outgunned by their enemies.

Judged against Woo’s more sophisticated work that came much later, Heroes is comparatively crude in its production and acting. But if graphic shootouts and similar cops and robbers set-ups are your bag, this is a fun place to time travel back to the early days of the Woo genre.

And, the restoration is quite impressive. Surely the film never looked better.

Now on Film Movement Plus