In 1986, after roughly a decade of slaving away making movies he didn’t want to make, John Woo finally exploded onto the scene proper with A Better Tomorrow; a shamelessly over-emotional crime thriller that helped coin the genre that eventually became known as Heroic Bloodshed. After that, something of a lesser known Woo title popped up in its wake that went by the evokative title of Heroes Shed No Tears and saw the director dive headlong into frenzied jungle warfare and unfettered emotions. However, what some people didn’t realise is that Woo actually directed this war movie before he made his breakout crime caper and as such, Heroes Shed No Tears technically stands as the first, true outing for the sensibilities that ultimately garnered Woo global recognition. Peckinpah blood squibs, relentless slow motion, hails of bullets, Chow Yun-Fat shooting goons while holding a baby – it all truly started here; but can an embryonic and tampered with vision manage to stand up to the bullet torn masterpieces that followed?
Recruited by the government of Thailand to head into the steaming jungle and capture the head of a drug ring known to reside within the Golden Triangle, Chinese mercenary Chan Chung and his band of warriors soon find that their misson us due to get infinitely more complicated as it goes on. After their initial assault, Chung and his buddies – Chin, Chau and a dude that’s worrying proficient with a flamethrower – are successful in slaughtering scores of troops and nabbing General Samton, snapping a pair of natty finger cuffs on him, but as they race to the Lao/Thai border with their captive they have to make a quick stop first. It seems for some reason, Chang’s family lives nearby, but as he and his men swing by to pick up his young son, Kenny, and his sister-in-law, Julie, Samton’s men have beaten them there in order to spring a trap.
Despite Chang’s father-in-law taking a fatal round to the chest, our heroes manage to continue on their quest with the young child and a woman in tow, but after a bloody run-in with a Vietnamese Colonal causes the sadistic soldier to lose an eye, he vows vengence and enlists a local tribe of hunters to aid him and his men in running Chang down. With not one, but two armies tracking them down, Chang’s group manage to catch a breath here and there thanks to some weird diversions involving gambling and a bizarrely soapy sex scene and ultimately find shelter with an American deserter who once saved Chang’s life.
Of course, what with this being a Joo Woo film and all, soon the number of good guys start to dwindle in the cloud of bullets, explosives and (weirdly enough) spears that come hurtling their way. Can Chang manage to get both his son and Samton to safety before they’re chopped into meat by frenetic gunfire?
As a fan of Woo who had strangely somehow managed to let Heroes Shed No Tears pass him by, I found watching it something of a fascinating experience. For a start we’re literally watching the director get a handle on the crazed action that would soon become his trademark and while his staging of the ridiculously huge setpieces may not rival the legendary likes of The Killer or Hard Boiled, you can’t fault the man for his enthusiasm. Simply put, Heroes Shed No Tears certainly doesn’t skimp on the brutality as the staggeringly violent gunfights see the director aggressively shake off about a decade of slapstick comedies in order to finally try and grab hold of the vision he was desperately trying to immortalise. Is it scattershot? Yes, both literally and figuratively – but the energy Woo brings to the savage battles is stunning to say the least. Shotgun blasts blow people across the screen, one guy wades into battle with a grenade launcher in each hand, both bullets and gore spray everywhere and while it all ends being a little unfocused, you certainly get your money’s worth as ghastly acts of torture start to veer the flick into Ruggero Deodato territory.
But between scenes of a tortured Chang having his eyes stitched open and a legitimately dangerous scene involving the young actor playing Kenny and a very close looking bush fire, the other thing that marks the film out as the first, true Woo, is the vast amounts of emotion he places on the ever rising stakes. “Big explosions, bigger emotions” always seems to be the order of the day when Woo is calling the shots and much like the hectic carnage, you can tell that the maestro of mayhem doesn’t quite have his concept down just yet, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t turn the hysterical tragedy up as high as it will go.
For a start, the good guys have to tear through oceans of enemies with a literal child tagging along and you’ll be surprised at how frequently the production seems to putting his hapless tyke in what looks like literal danger. Not only is that aforementioned fire scene incredibly worrying, but at times the filmmakers also used real fucking bullets too which just epically boggles the mind.
However, due to some tinkering from studio Golden Harvest, Woo’s original vision is blurred even more with the insertion of some truly strange comedic scenes which either features one of the group getting into a gambling war with a random village, or another getting an extended sex scene complete with soapy suds. Not only do they defuse the cutthroat action somewhat, but the the sex scenes seem especially out of place considered that Woo’s a bit of a prude when the discharge doesn’t come from a pump action shotgun.
And yet, to a Woo enthusiast, Heroes Shed No Tears (formally The Sunset Warriors before the tinkering) proves to be quite a little goldmine of watching one of the most distinctive purveyors of action cinema gradually chip away at finding his voice. Every character, be they good or bad, are treated abysmally, either to violence, outlandish torture or sexual assault and none of the white hats go out without at least one of their comrades screaming their anguish at the sky. But on top of this, surely only Woo would think to blend the horror of jungle warfare with the constant, existential panic of taking care of a child and the flashes of the future master Woo become prove to outweigh the weirder, out of place stuff.
Loaded with big booms, bigger blood packs and more male ugly crying than you should reasonably expect, Heroes Shed No Tears may be too deranged to fully make its director’s point correctly (one character spends the whole film wired into a suicide vest which he’s itching to detonate for some reason). But when it comes to being a trial run for bigger and better things (Woo eventually nailed the exhilarating/depressing war movie with Bullet In The Head), Heroes Shed No Tears will have you weeping for more when you’re not ducking for cover.
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