Hard Target information

Hard Target
Hard Target
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Woo
Written by	Chuck Pfarrer
Produced by	James Jacks; Sean Daniel
Starring	Jean-Claude Van Damme; Lance Henriksen; Yancy Butler; Wilford Brimley;
Cinematography	Russell Carpenter
Edited by	Bob Murawski
Music by	Graeme Revell; Tim Simonec
Production; companies	Alphaville Films; Renaissance Pictures
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	August 20, 1993 (United States);
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$19.5-20 million
Box office	$74.2 million

Hard Target is a 1993 action film directed by Hong Kong film director John Woo in his U.S. debut. 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 Cleef (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".

Hard Target was Woo's first U.S. film and was also the first major Hollywood film made by a Chinese director. 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.^[4] The film has gained a cult following especially for the action scenes,^[5] establishing Hard Target as a cult classic. Some critics regard it as one of Woo’s best American films.^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]

^ Elder 2005, p. 95.
^ Cite error: The named reference Harmetz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ "Hard Target". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-11-13.
^ "Hard Target (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
^ https://movieweb.com/john-woo-action-movie-scenes/
^ https://collider.com/john-woo-american-movies-ranked/
^ https://screenrant.com/john-woo-american-movies-ranked/
^ https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2023/10/the-essential-films-of-john-woo/
^ https://www.slashfilm.com/1459598/john-woo-hollywood-films-ranked-including-silent-night/

[FOOTNOTEElder200595-1] Elder 2005, p. 95.

[Harmetz-2] Cite error: The named reference Harmetz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[BoxOfficeMojo-3] "Hard Target". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-11-13.

[Rotten_Tomatoes-4] "Hard Target (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 14 January 2017.

[5] ttps://movieweb.com/john-woo-action-movie-scenes/

[6] ttps://collider.com/john-woo-american-movies-ranked/

[7] ttps://screenrant.com/john-woo-american-movies-ranked/

[8] ttps://www.flickeringmyth.com/2023/10/the-essential-films-of-john-woo/

[9] ttps://www.slashfilm.com/1459598/john-woo-hollywood-films-ranked-including-silent-night/

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