Stiq Flicks: Sleeping Dogs and Hard Boiled
Stiq Flicks - from film and video game industry freelance writer Kevin Kelly - examines video games and attempts to pair them with matching films. It's like wine and cheese, but with more aliens.
Sleeping Dogs is enjoying life this week after a near-death experience as True Crime: Hong Kong at Activision before being resurrected in its current form at Square Enix. But you can't even begin to think about Sleeping Dogs, let alone play it, without mentioning Hong Kong action cinema.
Once you've stepped into that arena, you can't go any further without discussing the films of directors Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and John Woo (to name a few). Then of course, you have to bring in Chow Yun-fat. While there are many other fantastic Hong Kong action actors, Yun-fat rose quickly to the pinnacle, and became the actor most associated with the genre on North American shores.
It's hard to imagine Sleeping Dogs existing in a world where these filmmakers and their movies didn't exist. Where these directors pulled back the curtain on the seedy criminal element deep inside of Hong Kong, the game picks up and continues. While there are many terrific films that would go along nicely with this title, we're pegging Hard Boiled as the one to go with. In fact, without Hard Boiled, there would never have been Sleeping Dogs.
Sleeping Dogs is enjoying life this week after a near-death experience as True Crime: Hong Kong at Activision before being resurrected in its current form at Square Enix. But you can't even begin to think about Sleeping Dogs, let alone play it, without mentioning Hong Kong action cinema.
Once you've stepped into that arena, you can't go any further without discussing the films of directors Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and John Woo (to name a few). Then of course, you have to bring in Chow Yun-fat. While there are many other fantastic Hong Kong action actors, Yun-fat rose quickly to the pinnacle, and became the actor most associated with the genre on North American shores.
It's hard to imagine Sleeping Dogs existing in a world where these filmmakers and their movies didn't exist. Where these directors pulled back the curtain on the seedy criminal element deep inside of Hong Kong, the game picks up and continues. While there are many terrific films that would go along nicely with this title, we're pegging Hard Boiled as the one to go with. In fact, without Hard Boiled, there would never have been Sleeping Dogs.
