Hard Target is a 1993 American action film directed by Hong Kong film director John Woo. The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, an out-of-work homeless Cajun merchant seaman and former United States Force Recon Marine who saves a young woman named Natasha Binder (Yancy Butler) from a gang of thugs in New Orleans. Chance learns that Binder is searching for her missing father (Chuck Pfarrer), and agrees to aid Binder in her search. They soon learn that Binder's father has died at the hands of hunt organisers Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pik van Cleaf (Arnold Vosloo), a ruthless businessman and his right-hand mercenary, who arrange the hunting of homeless men as a form of recreational sport. The screenplay was written by Pfarrer and is based on the 1932 film adaptation of Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game". It is the first installment in the Hard Target film series.
Hard Target was Woo's first American and English-language film, and is widely regarded as the first major Hollywood studio production directed by a Chinese – and more broadly, Asian – filmmaker. Universal Pictures was nervous about having Woo direct a feature and sent in director Sam Raimi to look over the film's production and to take Woo's place as director if he were to fail. Woo went through several scripts finding mostly martial arts films with which he was not interested. After deciding on Pfarrer's script for Hard Target, Woo wanted to have actor Kurt Russell in the lead role, but found Russell too busy with other projects. Woo then went with Universal's initial choice of having Van Damme star. Woo got along with Van Damme during filming and raised the amount of action in the film as he knew that the actor was up for it.
After 65 days of filming in New Orleans, Woo had trouble with the Motion Picture Association of America to secure the R rating that Universal wanted. Woo made dozens of cuts to the film until the MPAA allowed it an R rating. On its initial release, Hard Target received mixed reviews from film critics but was a financial success. The film has gained a cult following especially for the action scenes, establishing Hard Target as a cult classic. Some critics regard it as one of Woo's best American films.
Plot
In New Orleans, a homeless United States Force Recon Marine and Vietnam War veteran named Douglas Binder is the target of a hunt. He is given a belt containing $10,000 and told that he must reach the other side of the city to win the money and his life. Pursuing him is the hunt organizer and wealthy sportsman, Emil Fouchon, his lead right-hand mercenary Pik van Cleaf, a businessman named Mr. Lopacki – Fouchon's client who has paid $500,000 for the opportunity to hunt a human, and assassins including Stephan and Peterson. Binder fails to reach his destination and is killed by three crossbow bolts. Van Cleaf retrieves the money belt.
While searching for her father, Binder's estranged daughter Natasha is attacked by a group of muggers, punks who saw that she had a lot of cash earlier and attempt to rape her. She is saved by a homeless man with exceptional martial arts skills named Chance Boudreaux, a former Force Recon Marine and a sailor, now currently out-of-work. Boudreaux is initially hesitant to involve himself in her mission, but as his merchant seaman union dues are in arrears, he reluctantly allows Natasha to hire him as her guide and bodyguard during her search. Unfortunately, the search goes slowly as the city's police force is on strike, making the hunters' livelihood easier to conduct.
Natasha discovers that her father distributed fliers for a seedy recruiter named Randal Poe who has been secretly supplying Fouchon with homeless men with war experience and no family ties. Natasha questions Randal about her father's death, but they are discovered by an eavesdropping Van Cleaf. Fouchon and Van Cleaf beat Poe and cut his ear as a punishment for sending them a man with a daughter. New Orleans police detective Marie "May" Mitchell is reluctant to investigate Binder's disappearance until his charred body is discovered in the ashes of a derelict building. The death is deemed an accident, but Boudreaux searches the ruins and finds Binder's other matching dog tag,(as they always are given in pairs) which was pierced by one of the crossbow bolts. Van Cleaf's henchmen suddenly ambush Boudreaux and beat him unconscious to scare him and Natasha out of town. When he recovers, he offers Mitchell the dog tag as evidence that Binder was murdered. With the investigation getting closer, Van Cleaf and Fouchon decide to relocate their hunting business and begin eliminating "loose ends". The medical examiner who had been hiding the evidence of the hunt is killed along with Poe. Meanwhile, Boudreaux's friend, Elijah Roper, who is also homeless and former United States Army Special Forces is the next to participate in Fouchon's hunt and also ends up dead. Mitchell, Natasha and Boudreaux arrive moments later at Randal's car and are ambushed by Van Cleaf and several of his men. During the shootout, Mitchell is shot in the chest and dies. Boudreaux kills a handful of the mercenaries and escapes with Natasha. Fouchon and Van Cleaf assemble their mercenary team and five hired hunters to continue the chase.
Boudreaux leads Natasha to his uncle Clarence Douvee's house deep in the bayou and enlists his help to defeat the men. Boudreaux, Natasha, and Douvee lead the hunting party to the "Mardi Gras graveyard" (a warehouse of old damaged Mardi Gras floats and statues) and kill off Fouchon's men one by one. Van Cleaf is finally gunned down by Boudreaux in a shootout. In the end, only Fouchon is left, but he holds Boudreaux at bay by taking Natasha hostage and stabbing Douvee in the chest with his arrow. Boudreaux charges him, attacking with a flurry of blows, and then drops a grenade in his pants. Fouchon attempts in vain to dismantle the grenade but gets incinerated in the explosion.
It turns out that Douvee is still alive as the arrow Fouchon used only hit Douvee's whiskey flask. Boudreaux, Natasha, and Douvee make their way out of the warehouse.
Cast
thumb|[[Lance Henriksen received a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Emil Fouchon in Hard Target.
- Yancy Butler as Natasha Binder, a young woman who comes to New Orleans to search for her estranged father, Douglas, whom she has not seen since she was seven years old. When Natasha is attacked by thugs, she is saved by Chance Boudreaux who agrees to help her find her father.
- Kasi Lemmons as Detective Maria "May" Mitchell, a New Orleans police detective who works in the office while the police are on strike. Mitchell helps Natasha by ordering another autopsy when they show her the pierced dog tags that her father had.
- Willie C. Carpenter as Elijah Roper, Chance Boudreaux's friend who is also homeless and former United States Army Special Forces.
- Wilford Brimley as Uncle Clarence Douvee, Chance Boudreaux's uncle who lives deep in the Bayou. Chance and Natasha take shelter at his home as well as have him help during the film's final shoot out.
Other actors in the film include Chuck Pfarrer (the film's screenwriter) as Natasha's father Douglas Binder, Eliott Keener as Randal Poe, Marco St. John as Dr. Morton, Joe Warfield as Ismal Zenan, Sven-Ole Thorsen as Stephan, Jules Sylvester as Peterson, David Efron as Billy Bob, and Bob Apisa as Lopacki. Ted Raimi, brother of producer Sam Raimi, makes a cameo appearance as a man on the street.
Production
Development
After making Hard Boiled in Hong Kong, director John Woo decided to take an offer to work in the United States, where he would find himself happier as a filmmaker with a preferable work pace and more reasonable hours. Woo was first offered this job in the United States by Universal Pictures chairman Tom Pollock after he had seen Woo's film The Killer. Universal was not eager to have Woo direct an entire feature and only agreed after what producer James Jacks called a "difficult period of convincing". Universal was worried about having an Asian director on set who had limited command of English on a large-scale project. They hired American director Sam Raimi to oversee the film's production and to have him on standby if Woo was not able to fulfill his role as a director. Raimi was very excited to work with Woo as he was a fan of his Hong Kong films. Raimi was also confident in Woo's directorial skills, stating that "Woo at 70% is still going to blow away most American action directors working at 100%."
On his arrival in the United States, Woo went through several scripts before deciding on Hard Target. Describing the scripts he received, Woo stated that "Some of them were good – some of them were very good – but the rest were simply martial-arts movies and I told producers that I had no interest in doing those kinds of films anymore. I'd done a lot of them already." One of the scripts offered to Woo at this period was for Face/Off, which he turned down at the time, turned off by the science fiction aspect of the story. The script for Hard Target was written by Chuck Pfarrer. Director Andrew Davis was interested in the script, but ultimately turned it down. Woo read Pfarrer's script for Hard Target appreciating that it was a "simple but powerful story, with a lot of feeling underneath. For a good action film you need a solid structure. Chuck gave me that". Woo also stated that the story is "less John Woo" but the visual aspect would be "very John Woo". Pfarrer wrote the script originally basing it on the film The Naked Prey. After the script did not turn out Pfarrer worked on a script influenced by the film Aliens that became the basis for his comic Virus. The final attempt was a script based on the 1932 film The Most Dangerous Game. Pfarrer had the story take place in New Orleans to give an explanation of Jean-Claude Van Damme's accent. Woo had some control over the film's casting including casting minor characters and finding a cinematographer. The role led Butler to other starring roles in action films such as Drop Zone and Fast Money.
Hard Target was the second highest-grossing film release of the week at the American box office on its initial release. Hard Target also became the 49th highest-grossing film in the United States in 1993. Hard Target made US ticket sales of $32.6 million (worldwide sales were $74.2 million). Hard Target was released on DVD for Region 1 on July 1, 1998. A Region 2 DVD of the film was released on March 20, 2000. The American DVD has also been released with DVD bundle packs, that include other films starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. These DVDs included Hard Target, as well as Timecop, Street Fighter, Lionheart, Sudden Death and The Quest.
The European, Japanese and Australian DVD releases restore three minutes of the violent footage missing from the Region 1 DVD (that was cut for an R rating), making them the versions closest to Woo's original cut. A longer 116-minute copy of the film has not been released officially, but has been found as a bootleg. This copy is a poor-quality videocassette dub and has a burned-in time code in the corner indicating that the film was not meant for public viewing.
About the long version, Woo said: "I like the original cut, of course! And I also heard the long version became a cult movie – some people have seen it and liked it a lot, which is so interesting. And I wish the studio would have interest in releasing the movie again. I think it's worth it to do it." The film was released in 2013 in the U.K. and 2015 in the U.S. by Universal Studios. Kino Lorber released it in the United States on 4K Ultra HD and restored Blu-ray in 2021 including the Unrated Director's Cut and U.S. Theatrical Cut. Extra features is a new interview with director John Woo.
Reception
Box office
The film premiered in cinemas on August 20, 1993, in wide release throughout the U.S.. During its opening weekend, the film opened in second place grossing $10,106,500 in business showing at 1,972 locations. Hard Target <nowiki>'</nowiki>s revenue dropped by 50% in its second week of release, earning $5,027,485. For that weekend, the film fell to third place, even with an increased screening count of 1,999 theaters. The Fugitive remained unchallenged in first place grossing $14,502,865 in box office revenue. During its final week in release, Hard Target opened in a distant eleventh place with $1,270,945 in revenue. For that particular weekend, Striking Distance starring Bruce Willis made its debut, opening in first place with $8,705,808 in revenue. The film went on to top out domestically at $32,589,677 in total ticket sales through a 5-week theatrical run. Internationally, the film took in an additional $41,600,000 in box office business for a combined worldwide total of $74,189,677.
Critical response
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| style="text-align: left;" |"Swishing, whooshing, lovingly photographed weaponry. Nasty gurgles from the wounded. The clonking sound of a head hitting wrought iron. A bullet in the eye. These are the cornerstones of "Hard Target," one of this summer's few super-bloodthirsty action films, and the one that actually stood a chance of rising above its genre."
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| style="text-align: left;" |—Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times Gene Siskel also gave the film a thumbs down on the show stating that "John Woo is a good filmmaker ... Van Damme is pretty wooden ... You notice the style in the film because there is not much substance". In Variety, Emanuel Levy wrote that Hard Target was "a briskly vigorous, occasionally brilliant actioner starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. However, hampered by a B-script with flat, standard characters, and subjected to repeated editing of the violent sequences to win an R rating, pic doesn't bear the unique vision on display in Woo's recent "The Killer" and "Hard-Boiled." Van Damme and the director's reputation should ensure initial commercial kick on the way to solid if not spectacular box office". Desson Thompson of The Washington Post wrote that "When Van Damme isn't duking it out with the English language, scriptwriter Chuck Pfarrer is filling Henriksen's mouth with villainous pseudo-profundities. Even in a second-rate action picture like this, and despite Henriksen's commendable efforts, they're painful to listen to ... Woo's creative presence is practically stifled. There are some flashes of his deliriously wild style – a slow-motion moment here, a well-chosen freeze-frame there. He also introduces American audiences to his taste for unique motorcycle stunts and very, very loud car explosions. But these Wooisms are disappointingly minimal". Lance Henriksen received a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Emil Fouchon in the film. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 63% from 40 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Hard Target gets a boost from John Woo's stylish direction, but at heart, it's still another silly, explosion-dependent action thriller in the Jean-Claude Van Damme oeuvre."
In 2013 Den of Geek, included it at 4 in a list of the Top 10 Van Damme movies.
Other response
Several participants later reflected critically on the making of Hard Target. In 1995, Jean-Claude Van Damme described the script as weak, though he praised the film’s action sequences and the visual style brought by director John Woo, noting that Woo made him “look like a samurai with greasy hair”.
Woo later acknowledged that the production had been challenging. In 1997, Woo described the film as "quite a troublesome movie to make", but expressed satisfaction with the action scenes. In 2018, Woo said that he may have been overly ambitious, attempting to combine elements of Hong Kong action cinema, romantic storytelling and the aesthetics of a modern Western within an American studio production. Woo believed U.S. audiences at the time were unfamiliar with and unaccustomed to his use of stylized violence and extensive use of slow motion action scenes.
Sequel
A second film called Hard Target 2 was released on September 6, 2016, in the U.S. via Universal's 1440 Entertainment label. The new iteration stars Scott Adkins, Robert Knepper, Rhona Mitra, Ann Truong, and Temuera Morrison. and a sequel.