Hard Target (1993) on Netflix
Natasha Binder drives to New Orleans to look for her father, whose letters have stopped. An out-of-work sailor, Chance Boudreaux, agrees to guide her through the city for a fee.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.2/1060,677 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
Natasha Binder's father, Douglas, moved to New Orleans after her parents divorced, and he lives on the streets of the city now. His letters stopped arriving three weeks earlier, so she drives down from Michigan to find him. Doug's landlady Marie hands her a box of his photographs and suggests the mission called Our Lady of Charity, where Elijah Roper confirms Doug is homeless. When muggers grab her purse, Chance Boudreaux, an out-of-work sailor and former Force Recon Marine, fights them off. The police are on strike, so a detective can only tell her to find someone who knows the city. Chance owes his union $217 and cannot ship out until he pays it, so he takes the job as her guide.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hard Target (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Woo originally wanted Kurt Russell for the lead role, but found Russell was booked for two years with other film projects.
- Universal was not eager to have Woo direct an entire feature, worried about an Asian director with limited command of English on a large-scale project. It hired American director Sam Raimi to oversee production and to have him on standby if Woo could not fulfil his role as director.
- During the editing period Jean-Claude Van Damme commissioned his own edit of the film, excising whole characters to insert more scenes and close-ups of his character Chance. Asked about it, he replied that “People pay their money to see me, not to see Lance Henriksen”.
- The MPAA accepted the film only after Woo had made 20 cuts, among them the opening chase sequence and the Mardi Gras warehouse sequence. Even a non-action scene went: a romantic scene between Chance and Natasha.
- 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.
- Weapon fire on the set was considered dangerous enough that the crew built a new bulletproof plexiglas shield that could be bolted to the camera, useful in particular for the sequence in which Van Damme empties a magazine of ammo into it. The camera dollies were nicknamed “the Woo-Woo Choo-Choo”.
