When a rival gang ambushes the deal, a fierce shootout breaks out; the gangsters are defeated, but several police officers and civilians are wounded and Benny is killed.

After a police funeral, Pang burns the personnel file of another smuggler Tequila killed, revealing him to be an undercover cop.

Wong, who is looking to usurp the old Triad bosses through his control of the illicit arms trade, is impressed by Alan's skill and attempts to recruit him.

Pang refuses to say, but reveals the teahouse friendly fire killing to Tequila and warns him to stay away from the case.

Foxy finds Tequila at a jazz bar and informs him that Wong's armory is hidden in a vault beneath a nearby hospital.

At the hospital, Alan confronts Tequila, demanding to know the whereabouts of the vault; while the two are distracted, Mad Dog kills Foxy.

As Pang, officer Teresa Chang, and other inspectors evacuate the hospital, Wong and his men attempt to gain leverage by taking the staff and patients hostage while indiscriminately shooting fleeing patients and responding police officers, irritating Mad Dog with his callousness.

While Tequila leaves to assist Chang and rescue one last baby, Alan and Mad Dog engage in a tense duel before ending in a standoff with a group of crippled patients between them.

[9] The film's initial story was about Tony Leung's character being a psychopath who would poison baby food.

[7][10] Screenwriter Barry Wong was brought in to write a new story about Tony Leung's character being an undercover police officer.

Woo saw the staircase in the teahouse, and thought about a scene where a character would come shooting down gun smugglers while sliding down the banister.

[7][10][14] It was shot with interruptions from local triads in the area asking for protection money, and residents complaining about the noise.

Due to the length of the film, scenes from a side-story involving the relationship between the characters Tequila and Teresa Chang were cut.

[14] After reading the script, Woo felt that the character of Johnny Wong was not a strong enough physical threat.

This prompted the direction of one of the climax's action scenes, a lengthy shootout through the hospital's halls, to be a five-minute long take, so as to shorten the time needed to film.

[9] Woo chose these songs specifically for their lyrics to suggest that Tony was a sort of pen pal to Teresa.

[20] The North American premiere of Hard Boiled was in September 1992 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Woo does, in fact, seem to be a very brisk, talented director with a gift for the flashy effect and the bizarre confrontation.

"[32] A review in the Los Angeles Times stated that "With Hard Boiled, John Woo shows himself to be the best director of contemporary action films anywhere.

"[33] The Philadelphia Inquirer spoke positively about the action scenes, noting the "epic shootouts that bookend Hard-Boiled, John Woo's blood-soaked Hong Kong gangster extravaganza, are wondrously staged, brilliantly photographed tableaux.

And while he lets the body count get away from him, he constantly fascinates, through a combination of chaos and an excruciating control over what we're allowed to see.

"[36] After the film's initial release, critical reception continues to be positive; the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 92%, with an average rating of 7.8 out of 10, based on 71 reviews.

Even if the plot is full of holes, and the emotional tug isn't quite as strong as in The Killer, the action sequences (nearly the whole movie) are among the greatest ever filmed".

[33][39] Mark Salisbury of Empire Magazine gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "Infinitely more exciting than a dozen Die Hards, action cinema doesn't come any better than this."

[41] In 2023, Stephanie Zacharek of Time put Hard Boiled on a list of the "100 Best Movies of the Past 10 Decades", stating that Woo's "artistry lies in the way he shapes a sequence for maximum kinetic effect, creating mosaics of sound and action that leave you feeling exhilarated rather than beaten up.

[50] The game features the character Tequila from Hard Boiled, who is travelling the globe in search of his kidnapped daughter.

[51] In 2009 John Woo's production company Lion Rock Entertainment was reported to be developing a film version of the game, to be written by Jeremy Passmore and Andre Fabrizio.