Hard Target

This article is about the film. For the military term, see Soft target.

Hard Target
Film poster with a gradient background fading from black to blue. In the middle is the head of an arrow with the character Chance's reflection in it. At the top of the poster is the name "Van Damme" in capital letters. At the bottom left corner is the film's title, production staff and cast and catch slogan stating "Don't Hurt What You Can't Kill".
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJohn Woo
Written byChuck Pfarrer
Produced byJames Jacks
Sean Daniel
Starring
CinematographyRussell Carpenter
Edited byBob Murawski
Music byGraeme Revell
Tim Simonec
Production
companies
Alphaville Films
Renaissance Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • August 20, 1993 (1993-08-20) (United States)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$19.5-20 million[1][2]
Box office$74.2 million[3]

Hard Target is a 1993 American action film directed by Hong Kong film director John Woo in his American film directorial 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 American film and 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]

  1. ^ Elder 2005, p. 95.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Harmetz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Hard Target". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-11-13.
  4. ^ "Hard Target (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
  5. ^ "John Woo's Best Action Sequences, Ranked". 18 February 2023.
  6. ^ "Every American John Woo Movie, Ranked from Worst to Best". Collider. 27 July 2023.
  7. ^ "Every American John Woo Film Ranked from Worst to Best". Screen Rant. 27 December 2021.
  8. ^ "The Essential Films of John Woo". 7 October 2023.
  9. ^ "John Woo's Hollywood Films, Ranked (Including Silent Night)". December 2023.