Chow Yun-Fat's bullet ballet was reloaded and ready to fire again on Croisette.

John Woo's landmark action wonder "Hard Boiled" prepared for the focus screening on this year's Cannes Classics, type Save bullet-like masterpieces from the movie Extinction, discovering blood, sweat and digital witchcraft.

Due to rights issues, the long-standing Chow Yun-fat starrer appeared on Croisette, giving new insights into the technical challenges in its meticulous preservation process.

In the film, a clumsy policeman (Jew) loses his partner in a battle with gun smugglers and performs the mission of grabbing them. To get close to the ring leader, he teamed up with the secret policeman (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), who is a gangster killer. Together they use all the means too much power to find them. The film also stars Teresa Mo, Philip Chan, Philip Kwok and Anthony Wong.

“All 156 movies in the 'Hard Boiled' and Golden Princess library are not available outside of Asia, as these rights have long been owned by Hong Kong real estate developer Kowloon Development,” explains Jordan Fields, senior vice president and original work! Studio, take the lead in restoring work. “KDC has not focused on the film business after the death of Princess Golden Film Production in 1995.”

Now, for the first time, recovery experts detail the extensive work required to bring this action movie cornerstone back to its intended glory. The initial negatives came from the Hong Kong Film Archives and were digitized by Hong Kong's Interface Video Production Ltd, posed a major challenge.

"It's in poor condition, showing significant signs of age and wear," said Michael Coronado, a film recovery expert at Duplitech. "The most striking injuries include the frequent tear of film throughout the reel. The iconic one-hit hospital action sequence was damaged by accumulated dust and deep vertical scratches, which destroyed the visual clarity and intensity of the scene."

He added: “The element exhibits obvious frame changes and occasional warping due to the shrinkage.”

The recovery team used a sophisticated combination of Filmworkz Phoenix and Pixel Farm’s PF Clean Technologies. The process begins with a Phoenix DVO frame lock to stabilize the image before resolving flicker and warping issues.

One of the most inspiring revelations is the extent to which manual intervention is required. "One of the challenges of restoring 'hard boil' is the film's intense action sequences, characterized by explosions, gunfire and rapid movement, which significantly limits the automated dirt removal," Coronado noted. "These scenes require careful, frame-by-frame manual repair."

A particularly challenging part appeared at the end of the fourth reel. "Our team encountered a major tear that brought the image across the entire frame," Coronado revealed. "To restore this section, our skilled recovery artists used cloning drawing techniques by covering adjacent frames to fix damaged shots."

The color grading process presents its own set of challenges. “'Hard Boiled' contains over 2,900 photos over the entire 128-minute runtime, including many optical lenses that must be corrected with dynamic keychains,” Duplitech’s Colorist Blake David-Blasingame is responsible. “The negative situation is very inconsistent and has to be re-timed through the scene, sometimes being shot to maintain consistency.”

The recovery finally reaches the final form of Dolby Vision HDR masters, which includes all versions, including the P3 digital movie version, which will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, from which it originates.

Henry Weintraub, the yelling recovery supervisor! The studio described the emotional investment in the project. “Restoring the film is both a challenge and a labor of love,” he said. “‘Hard Cook’ means a lot to many people, including me, and I want to make sure we are just. It’s important to keep the original look and sound design of that era, while also enhancing both to reach their full potential.”

Director John Woo has gained his recognition. "He said he was very satisfied with the recovery - it was incredible to hear, especially given the level of personal this film is for him," Weintraub confirmed.

The Cannes Classic Restoration Choice represents a film widely regarded as one of the greatest action movies of all time, ultimately leaving new viewers experiencing the ballet violence and technical spirit on the big screen as originally intended.