Who farted?
Big Bullet is a 1996 Hong Kong action film directed by Benny Chan, starring Sean Lau Ching-wan, Jordan Chan, and veteran villain actors Yu Rong-guang and Anthony Wong as the main antagonists, a pair of terrorist masterminds on the loose in the streets of Hong Kong.
Sergeant Bill Chu (Sean Lau) is a loose cannon Cowboy Cop demoted to the Emergency Unit after an assault on his tactical commander in the aftermath of an unsuccessful police raid. Paired with a group of problematic officers including punk-ish youngster Inspector Jeff Chiu (Jordan Chan) and rookie Inspector "Apple" (Theresa Lee), Bill and his team ends up becoming unlikely heroes when two diabolical terrorist masterminds, The Professor (Yu) and his right-hand man, Bird (Anthony) turns up in Hong Kong.
At the 1996 Golden Horse Film Festival, Big Bullet was nominated for Best Action Choreography by veteran choreographer Ma Yuk-sing, and won award for Best Film Editing (for Peter Cheung and Cheung Ka-fai). Lau Ching-wan, Jordan Chan, and Theresa Lee gets nominations for their roles in the movie too, while director Benny Chan establishes himself as a capable director of high-octane action films with explosive scenes, after Who Am I? (1998), The Magic Crane, Man Wanted and a few earlier, more subdued and grounded action movies.
Big Bullet provides examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Inspector Apple may be the only female member on Bill’s team, but she can hold her own against the Professor and his terrorist team well enough without assistance.
- Blood Knight: Both the main antagonists, The Professor and Bird, takes pleasure in killing, and witnessing the deaths of multiple policemen, bystanders and civilians from their shooting makes them lust for more violence.
- Car Chase Shoot-Out: The film closes its second act when Sergeant Bill and his team of rookies have to pursue the two main villains, The Professor and The Bird and their team of terrorists, in a high-octane shootout, the occupants of each vehicle firing repeatedly at each other as their transport goes through the busy streets of downtown Hong Kong, an underpass, and a tunnel. More often than not, the Professor would indiscriminately gun down entire waves of policemen at roadblocks for getting in his way, and at one point shooting a random traffic cop not involved in the chase just for shits and giggles.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: When Bill and a band of policemen had the Professor arrested in an early scene and is in an elevator, Bill decide to rough up the Professor for making a snarky comment, by punching him in the gut. The Professor merely responds with a sinister, chill-inducing smile.
- Cowboy Cop: Sergeant Bill Chu, who doesn’t hesitate to argue with his superiors, butt heads with his commanding officers, get into fistfights with suspects, engage in Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique or take on deadly terrorists heads-on.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Professor, Bird and their team of terrorists against the Hong Kong police, Interpol agents, and military. The villains are elite special forces members before turning to a life of crime, and easily wastes law enforcement officers who were hopelessly outmatched.
- David vs. Goliath: Invoked when Inspector Jeff Chiu fights Bird; the latter is a huge brute of a man, while Jeff is a rather short and skinny officer whose punches barely fazes Bird. Jeff eventually wins when he causes an overhead railing to collapse and pin down Bird, and then sending a jeep tethered at the back of the plane to slide into Bird and squashing him.
- Deadly Hug: The Professor kills off Inspector Yang in this way, suddenly grabbing him on the busy streets, and then shoving a dagger into his gut.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The opening flashback that shows an arrest scene from Bill’s past.
- Destination Defenestration: The Professor defenestrates an Interpol officer while shooting up the police headquarters, kicking him through a high glass window, although the officer didn’t completely go through and was instead tangled in the window blinds.
- "Die Hard" on an X: Die Hard in A Military Airport, which is the setting of the climatic finale.
- Dressing as the Enemy: A villainous example that sets up the climax, where The Professor, Bird and their terrorist team infiltrates a military airbase dressed in army fatigues. Once they got on the plane, they kill everyone on board and starts taking over.
- Drives Like Crazy: Sergeant Bill during the vehicle chase scene, taking a shortcut through a back alley, a construction site and a low overpass, crashing through plenty of public property in the process in his attempt to catch up with the Professor.
- Elite Mook: The Professor's terrorist team. There are less than ten of them in total, even when including the Professor and Bird, and they easily curb-stomp the police force and military who gets into their way.
- Falling into the Cockpit: In the final battle on an out-of-control military plane about to take off, Bill’s team takes on The Professor, Bird, and the terrorists, while Apple, who is a rookie cop, had to take over the pilot’s seat and prevent the plane from taking off, despite her having zero experience in piloting.
- Firing in the Air a Lot: One of the Professor’s terrorists fires his machine-gun into the air to clear a diner of its occupants, also to draw then police into the building for a shootout.
- Karmic Death: The Professor hijacks a military plane by killing everyone on board and forces it to take off, only to have Sergeant Bill tackle him off the plane. As both men lands underneath the plane, The Professor gets crushed alive by the plane’s wheels, which misses Bill entirely.
- Money Mauling: In the final battle on the plane, Bill, in an attempt to take down the Professor, grabs a nearby duffel bag belonging to the Professor and uses it to smack his opponent in the face. Turns out that is the bag of bank money retrieved by the Professor’s terrorist team, where the bag of money ends up busting and scattering notes all over the interior of the plane.
- No Name Given: The Big Bad is called The Professor, while his huge dragon is simply called Bird.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Dragon of this movie is called Bird. And he’s played by Anthony Wong, a rather huge, burly actor known for playing villains. He even lampshades this when fighting Inspector Jeff Chiu.Bird: "I am the Bird. What are you looking at?"
- No Range Like Point-Blank Range: The Bird executes a woman in a diner while seated right next to her, shooting her head with a quick-drawn pistol from point blank.
- Nervous Wreck: Apple when she is behind the controls of the military plane.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Apple tends to over-sweat when she is nervous, for instance after the street shootout, and when she’s forced to maneuver the out-of-control military plane in the climax. The camera tends to focus on her and audiences can clearly see how much sweat is coming from her.
- By the time the action scene is over, the scene cuts to Apple in the cockpit, and poor Apple looks like she just stepped out of a sauna.
- Percussive Maintenance: In a last-ditch attempt to stop the hijacked plane from taking off, Apple desperately shoves her foot onto the control panel. It works, the plane begins slowing down and eventually grinds to a halt.
- Plucky Comic Relief: A somewhat rare example where it’s the token female of the team, Apple, who is this trope. Being a rookie, she tends to bumble around, panic easily, cracks jokes to ease the mood, and in the ending after she barely managed to stop the out-of-control plane from taking off, she is seen doing a "Hallelujah" motion while making a cross with her hands in sheer relief.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Sergeant Bill and his team of police rejects, which becomes closer to each other after spending much of the movie bonding.
- Shout-Out: The final battle pays homage to Die Hard 2, being Bill and his team fighting terrorists on an out-of-control plane, culminating with Bill and the Professor fighting each other one-on-one on top of the plane.
- Sinister Shades: Both the Professor and Bird wears dark glasses when they’re on an unstoppable killing spree.
- Sound-Only Death: The Professor’s fate. Audiences hears him getting crushed by the plane’s wheel, but didn’t see the results.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: When Bill and his team of officers have to transport the Professor – a dangerous, world-renown terrorist mastermind and supervillain, in an elevator, as shown in the screenshot above. Despite the Professor being in handcuffs, they are well aware of him being ruthless killing machine wanted in several countries.
- Unconventional Vehicle Chase: Between police vehicles, a hijacked van, and Bill’s team in their police jeep.
