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Action film

The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as David Bordwell suggested they were films that favor spectacle to storytelling, others such as Goeff King stated they allow the scenes of spectacle to be attuned to story telling. Action films are often hybrid with other genres, mixing into various forms ranging to comedies, science fiction films, and horror films.

While the term "action film" or "action adventure film" has been used as early as the 1910s, the contemporary definition usually refers to a film that came with the arrival of New Hollywood and the rise of antiheros appearing in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s drawing from war films, crime films and Westerns. These genres were followed by what is referred to as the "classical period" in the 1980s. This was followed by the post-classical era where American action films were influenced by Hong Kong action cinema and the growing using of computer generated imagery in film. Following the September 11 attacks, a return to the early forms of the genre appeared in the wake of Kill Bill and The Expendables films. Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It, writing that the reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst."

Characteristics
In the Journal of Film and Video, Lennart Soberson stated that the action film genre has been a subject of scholarly debate since the 1980s. Soberson wrote that repeated traits of the genre include chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work while other scholars asserted there were more underlying traits that define the genre. David Bordwell in The Way Hollywood Tells It wrote that audiences are "told that spectacle over rides narrative" in action cinema while Wheeler Winston Dixon echoed that these films were typified by "excessive spectacle" as a "desperate attempt to mask the lack of content." Geoff King argued that the spectacle can also be a vehicle for narrative, opposed to interfering with it. Soberson stated that Harvey O'Brien had "perhaps the most convincing understanding of the genre", stating that the action film was "best understood as a fusion of form and content. It represents the idea and ethic of action through a form in which action, agitation and movement are paramount."

O'Brien wrote further in his book Action Movies: The Cinema of Striking Back to suggest action films being unique and not just a series of action sequences, stating that that the difference between Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Die Hard (1988), that while both were mainstream Hollywood blockbusters with hero asserting masculinity and overcoming obstacles to a personal and social solution, John McClane in Die Hard repeatedly firing his automatic pistol while swinging from a high rise was not congruent with the image of Indiana Jones in Raiders swinging his whip to fend off villains in the backstreets of Cairo. British author and academic Yvonne Tasker expanded on this topic, stating that action films have no clear and constant iconography or settings. In her book The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film (2015), she found that the most broadly consistent themes tend to be a characters quest from freedom from oppression such as a hero overcoming enemies or obstacles and physical conflicts or challenge, usually battling other humans or alien opponents.

In their book Action Cinema Since 2000 (2024), Tasker, Lisa Purse, and Chris Holmlund stated that thinking of action as a mode is more helpful than thinking of it as a genre. The three authors suggested that action frames a certain manner of filmmaking and viewing exceed genre without eclipsing it stating that websites such as IMDb and Wikipedia rarely label films by a single genre and that streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix similarly dilutes what is marketed and received as action.

History
In transnational cinema, there are two major trends in action films: Hollywood action films and their style being imitated around the globe and the other being Chinese-language martial arts films. The roots of action films extend into the beginning of film but it was only in the mid-20th century when action films developed into their own recognizable genre instead of being a collection of other types of films such as Westerns, swashbucklers or adventure films. Films have been described "action films" or "action-adventure film" as early as the 1910s. Only by the 1980s was the term action as its own unique genre used routinely in terms of promotion and reviewing practices.

Hong Kong action films
The first Chinese-language martial arts films can be traced to Shanghai cinema of the late 1920s. These films were popular during the period, which comprised almost 60% of the total Chinese films. Man-Fung Yip stated that these film were "rather tame" by contemporary standards. He wrote that they lacked the kind of dazzling action choreography as expected today and had crude and rudimentary special effects. These films came under increasing attack by both government officials and cultural elites for their allegedly superstitious and anarchistic tendencies, leading them to be banned in 1932. It was not until the base of Chinese commercial filmmaking was relocated from Shanghai to Hong Kong in the late 1940s that martial arts cinema was revived. These films contained much of the characteristics of the previous era. During this period, over 100 films were based on the adventures of real life Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung who first appeared in film in 1949. These films primarily on circuited within Hong Kong and Cantonese-speaking areas with Chinese diaspora. Yip continued that these Hong Kong films were still lagging behind in aesthetic and technical standards that films from the United States, Europe and Japan had during this period.

Yip described Japanese cinema as the most advanced in Asia at the time. This was showcased with the international breakthrough of Akira Kurosawa's films like Rashomon (1950). During this period was the popularity of the chanbara in Japan, a sub-genre to the jidai-geki, or period drama with an emphasis on sword fighting and action. It had a similar level of popularity to that of the Western in the United States. The most internationally known films of this era were the films Kurosawa with Seven Samurai (1954), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Yojimbo (1961). By at least the 1950s, Japanese films were looked upon as a model to be emulated by Hong Kong film production, and Hong Kong film companies began actively enlisting professionals from Japan, such as cinematographer Tadashi Nishimoto to contribute to color and widescreen cinematography. New literary sources also developed in martial arts films of this period, with the xinpai wuxia xiaoshuo (or "new school martial arts fiction") coming into prominence with the success of Liang Yusheng's Longhu Dou Jinghua (1954) and Jin Yong's Shujian enchou lu (1956) which showed influence of the Shanghai martial arts films but also circulated from Hong Kong to Taiwan and Chinese communities over seas. This led to a growing demand in both local and regional markets in the early 1960s and saw a surge in production of Hong Kong martial arts films that went beyond the stories about Wong Fei-hung which were declining in popularity. These new martial arts films featured magical swordplay and higher production values and more sophisticated special effects than the previous films with Shaw Brothers a campaign of "new school" (xinpai) martial arts swordplay films such as Xu Zenghong's Temple of the Red Lotus (1965) and King Hu's Come Drink with Me (1966). In the 1970s, the Hong Kong martial arts films began to grow under the format of yanggang ("staunch masculinity") mostly through the films of Chang Cheh which were popular. This transition led to the kung fu film sub-genre at beginning of the decade and moved beyond the swordplay films with contemporary settings of late Qing or early Republican periods and had more hand-to-hand combat over supernatural swordplay and special effects. A new studio, Golden Harvest quickly became one of independent filmmakers to grant creative freedom and pay and attracted new directors and actors, including Bruce Lee. The popularity of kung fu films and Bruce Lee led to attract a global audience of these films in the United States and Europe, but was cut short on Lee's death in 1973 leading the phases popularity to decline. Following a period of stagnation, Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung revitalized the genre with shaolin kung fu films and Chor Yuen's series of darker swordplay films based on the novels of Gu Long. Kung Fu comedies appeared featuring Jackie Chan as martial arts films flourished into the 1980s. Other films again modernized the form with gangster films of John Woo (A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989)) and the Wong Fei Hung saga returning in Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China featuring Jet Li which again revitalized the swordplay styled films. By the turn of the century Hollywood action films would look towards Hong Kong cinema and bringing some of their major actors and directors over to apply their style to their films, such as Chan, Woo, Li, Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Woo-Ping. The release of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) led to a Global release status of Chinese-language martial arts films, most notably Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004), Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and Chen Kaige's The Promise (2005). Most Hong Kong action films in the first quarter of the 21st century, such as those in Cold War (2012), Cold War 2 (2016) and The White Storm film series have their violence toned down, especially compared to the earlier work of directors like Woo and Johnnie To. Antong Chen, in his study on the Hong Kong action film, wrote that the influence of China and the amount of Chinese co-productions made with Hong Kong created a shift in these films, particularly following the release of Infernal Affairs (2002).

Hollywood action films
Harvey O'Brien wrote in 2012 that the contemporary action film emerged through other genres, primarily Westerns, crime and war films and can be separated into four forms: the formative, the classical, the postclassical and neoclassical phases. Yvonne Tasker reiterated this in her book on action and adventure films, saying that action films became a distinct genre during the New Hollywood period of the 1970s.

The formative films would be from the 1960s to the early 1980s where the Antihero appears in cinema, featuring characters who act and transcend the law and social conventions. This appears initially in films like Bullitt (1968) where a tough police officer protects society by upholding the law against systematic corruption. This extended into films which O'Brien described as "knee-jerk responses" to perceived threats with rogue cop and vigilante films such as Dirty Harry (1971) and Death Wish (1974) where the restoration of order is only possible by force and anti-social characters prepared to act when society does not. The vigilantism reappears in other films that were exploitative of southern society such as Billy Jack (1971) and White Lightning (1973) and "good ol' boy" comedies like Smokey and the Bandit (1977). This era also emphasizes the car chase scenes as moments of spectacle in films like Bullitt and The French Connection (1971). O'Brien described these films as emphasizing "the fusion of man and machine" with the drivers and vehicles acting as one, concluding with what he described as "the ultimate in apocalyptic modernity and social erasure" in Mad Max 2 (1981).

O'Brien described the classical form of action cinema to be the 1980s. The decade continued the trends of formative period with heroes as avengers (Lethal Weapon (1987)), rogue police officers (Die Hard (1988)) and mercenary warriors (Commando (1985)). Following the continuity of the car and man hybrid of the previous decade, the 1980s featured weaponized men with who were either also carrying weapons such as Sudden Impact (1983), trained to be weapons (American Ninja (1985)) or imbued with technology (RoboCop (1987)). O'Brien noted that the formative trends at this point had become "identifiably generic" as film industries began to reproduced these films during the decade producers like Joel Silver and production companies like The Cannon Group, Inc. began to formulate production of these films with both high and low budgets. The action films of this era have roots in classical story telling, specifically rooted from martial arts films and Westerns, and are built around a three-act structure centered on survival, resistance and revenge with narratives where the physical body of the hero is tested, traumatized and ultimately triumphant.

The third shift in action cinema, the postclassical, was defined by the predominance of Eastern cinema and its aesthetics, primarily the wire-work of Hong Kong action cinema from the classical era, through the convention of the increasingly computer generated effects. This saw the decline of overt masculinity in the action film which corresponded with the end of the Cold War in 1991, while the rise of self-referential and parodies of this era grew in films like Last Action Hero (1993). O'Brien described this era as being soft where the hard bodies of the classical era were replaced with computer generated imagery such as that of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). This was displayed in corresponding with corresponded with millennial angst and apocalypticism showcased in films like Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998). Action films of mass destruction began requiring more overtly super heroic characters with further comic book adaptations being made with increased non-realistic settings with films like The Matrix (1999).

The fourth phase arrived following the September 11 attacks in 2001, which suggested an end to fantastical elements that defined the action hero and genre. Following the release of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) revisited the tropes of 1970s action films leading a renaissance of vengeance narratives in films like The Brave One (2007) and Taken (2008). O'Brien found that Tarantino's films were post-modern takes on the themes that rescinded irony to restore "cinephile re-actualization of the genre's conventions." The genre went into full circle resurrecting films from the classical period with Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Rambo (2008) finding the characters navigating a contemporary world while also acknowledging their age, culminating into The Expendables (2010) film.

The most commercially successful action films and franchise of the 21st century have been comic book adaptations, which commenced with the X-Men and is seen in other series such as Spider-Man, and Iron Man series. Tasker wrote that despite the central characters in superhero cinema being extraordinary, occasionally even God-like, they often followed the traces of the central character becoming powerful of which is fundamental to action films, often dealt with origin stories in superhero films.

Hybrid genres
Action films often interface with other genres. Tasker wrote that films are often labelled action thrillers, action-fantasy and action-adventure films with different nuances. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing a film as "crime/action" or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir (2013) said that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews who are rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine.

Film Studies began to engage generic hybridity in the 1970s. James Monaco wrote in 1979 in American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, the Movies that "the lines that separate on genre from another have continued to disintegrate." Tasker said that most post-classical action films are hybrids, drawing from genres as varied as war films, science fiction, horror, crime, martial arts and comedy films. Action films expansiveness complicates easy categorization and though the genre is often spoken of as singular genre, it is rarely discussed as singular style.

Arthouse action
The arthouse action film combines stylized action with arthouse or noir atmosphere, metaphysical or philosophical subtext. Through psychological characterisation and a sometimes disjointed, fragmented narrative this movie type offers more complexity than the traditional action.

Martial arts film
In Chinese-language films, both wuxia and kung fu are genre-specific terms, while martial arts is a generic term to refer to several types of films containing martial arts.

Wuxia
The wuxia film is the oldest genre in Chinese cinema. Stephen Teo wrote in his book on Wuxia that there is no satisfactory English translation of the term, with it often being identified as "the swordplay film" in critical studies. It is derived from the Chinese words wu denoting militarist or martial qualities and xia denoting chivalry, gallantry, and qualities of knighthood. The term wuxia entered into popular culture in the serialization of Jinaghu qixia zhuan (1922). In wuxia, the emphasis is on chivalry and righteousness and allows for phantasmagoric actions over the kung fu film's more ground-based combat.

Kung fu film
The Kung fu film emerged in the 1970s from the swordplay films. Its name is derived from the Cantonese term gong fu which has two meanings: the physical effort required to completing a task and the abilities and skills acquired over time. Films from the period reflected on the cultural and social climate from the period, as seen in invoking Japanese or Wester imperialist forces as foils.

The kung fu film came out of the wuxia films. In comparison to the wuxia, film, the focus on the kung fu film is on the martial arts over chivalry,  The martial arts films was in decline by the mid-1970s in Hong Kong in relation to the sock market crash which went from over 150 films in 1972 to just over 80 in 1975, which led to a downfall in martial arts films produced. When the economy became to rebound, a new trend of martial arts films, the Shaolin kung fu films emerged and sparked a revival of the genre. Unlike the wuxia, the kung fu film primarily focuses on fighting on the ground. While heroes in kung fu films often display chivalry, they generally hail from different fighting schools, namely wudang and shaolin.

American-styled productions
American martial arts films feature what author M. Ray Lott described as a more realistic style of violence over the Hong Kong wuxia films with more realism and are often low-budget productions. Martial arts began routinely appearing in fight scenes in American films in the 1960s with films like The Born Losers (1967) which was predominantly a drama, interspersed with martial arts scenes. American martial arts films predominantly came into production following the release of Enter the Dragon (1973), with the only higher-budgeted American film to follow in its wake being The Yakuza (1974). Lott noted the two films would lead to the two subsequent styles of marital arts films in the United States, with films like Enter the Dragon about people who reveled in combat, often in a tournament setting, and The Yakuza which had several genres attached to it, but featured several martial arts sequences. By the end of the 1970s, the style was an established genre in American cinema, often featuring tough heroic characters who would fight and not think about their actions until after a fight sequence. In the 1980s, American martial arts films reflected the national move towards conservatism, reflected in films of Chuck Norris and other actors such as Sho Kosugi. The genre would shift from theatrical releases towards the end of the decade with the rise of home video, the lower box-office of American martial arts productions, and a significant portion of direct-to-video action films that first were made in the late 1980s in the United States were martial arts films. Towards the end of the 1990s, production of low-budget marital arts films declined as no new stars in the genre developed and older actors such as Cynthia Rothrock and Steven Seagal started showing up in less and less films. Even internationally popular films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) had negligible effects in American productions in either the direct-to-video field, or in similarly low-budgeted theatrical releases such as Bulletproof Monk (2003).

While the American styled-films were predominantly made in the United States, productions were also made in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa, and were predominantly shot in the English-language.

Heroic bloodshed
Heroic Bloodshed is a term coined by Rick Baker in the British fanzine Eastern Heroes. Baker described the style as Hong Kong action films which feature gangsters and gunplay and martial arts that were more violent than kung fu films. Laikwan Pang asserts that these gangster films appeared at a time when Hong Kong citizens felt particularly powerless with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China set for 1997. The key directors of the genre were John Woo and Ringo Lam, and producer Tsui Hark, with the starting point of the genre being traced to Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) make a record-breaking HK$34.7 million at the Hong Kong box office. The style of these films would influence American productions, such as Michael Bay's Bad Boys II (2003) and the Wachowskis' The Matrix (1999). Korean media recognized the more fatalistic and pessimistic tone of these films, leading to Korean journalists to label the style as "Hong Kong noir". The influence of these films was evident in early Korean films such as Im Kwon-taek's General's Son (1990) and later films such Song Hae-sung's A Better Tomorrow (2010), Cold Eyes (2013) and New World (2013).

Postcolonial Hong Kong cinema has struggled to maintain its international identity as a provider of these types action films because the talents involved had abandoned the Hong Kong film industry after the handover in 1997.

Regional action cinema
Anglophone action film scholarship has tended to emphasize bigger budget American action films, with scholarship tending to find films that fall out of Hollywood productions as being to not fit the genre. By 2024, many national and regional industries were known for action films. These include international films such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, South Korean, Japanese, Thai, Brazilian, Chinese, South African, French and Italian action titles.

Australia
At the turn of the millennium, Australian genre films have gained increasing acceptance in the Australian feature film industry, while the action genre represented a small percentage of its output in the 21st century.

Scholars of Australian genre film generally used the term "action-adventure" which allows them to apply it to various forms of narratives such as tongue in cheek heroic posturing stories like Crocodile Dundee (1986), road movies or bush/outback films. In the book Australian Genre Film, Amanda Howell suggested that this label was used to help distance Australian cinema from Hollywood films as it would be suggesting commerce over culture and that it would be "quite unacceptable to make Australian movies using conventions established in the U.S.A." Howell stated this to be the case with action films of the 1970s and 1980s with Brian Trenchard-Smith's Turkey Shoot (1982) being the most notorious. Smith had previously released films like Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1979) when financial incentives were available for overtly commercial projects. She commented that action films did tell identifiably Australian stories such as the Sandy Harbutt's biker film Stone (1974) and Miller's post-apocalyptic film Mad Max (1979) derived from Australia's social and cultural realities, as well as how George Miller's later Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) derived from Australia's long-standing cinematic fascination with the road and cars and a history of cultural anxiety towards a bleak and forbidding outback landscape opposed to the optimism of American action films.

France
France is a major European country for film production and has made co-production commitments with 44 countries around the world. Around beginning of the 21st century, France began producing a series of films explicitly intended for international markets, with action films representing a significant portion. These films include Taxi 2 (2000), Kiss of the Dragon (2001), District 13 (2004) and Unleashed (2005). Whan asked about the Americanization of these French films, Christophe Gans, director of Brotherhood of the Wolf stated that "Hollywood ownership of certain elements [...] must be challenged, in order to show that these elements have also long been present in European culture."

The most significant producers of French action films with international ambitions is Luc Besson's France-based EuropaCorp, who released films like Taxi (1998) and From Paris with Love (2010). EuropaCorp produced Transporter franchise starred British actor Jason Statham and made him an action film star, which led him to feature in The Expendables series by the end of the 2010s.

India
In the 1970s, the Bollywood action film consolidated with two films starring Amitabh Bachchan: Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer (1973) and Yash Chopra's Deewaar (1975). The box office success of these films made Bachchan a star and spawned the "angry young man" film in Bollywood cinema. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the action genre film declined considerably with new films predominantly featuring former body builders failing to reach the popularity Bachan had. These films predominantly earned their revenue through longer runs at B-grade theatres.

In 2009, the action genre was re-popularized with the box office success of Wanted (2009) starring Salman Khan. Khan reinvented his screen persona with that of his image in the Bollywood press who reported on him in the headlines of Bollywood magazines for his public brawls and affairs with leading actresses. In Dabangg (2010), Khan continued with this public persona, which was repeated in several of his later fims such as Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Dabangg 2 (2012).

From the 1980s, generations of actors in Telugu cinema have invoked Hong Kong action films, such as Srihari who stated he wanted to become an actor after watching his first Bruce Lee film. Several films in Telugu cinema were remakes of Hong Kong films, such as Hello Brother (1994) which is based on Twin Dragons (1992). Other films such as the martial arts film Bhadrachlam (2001), borrows from American cinema with the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Kickboxer (1989). SS Rajamouli's RRR (2022) was among the highest budgeted films made in India, and became a rare hit film outside of Indian diaspora, where it broke box office records in Japan and performed exceptionally well in American box office.

Japan
Japan was a difficult market for Hong Kong action cinema to break into. Prompted by the success of Enter the Dragon and the popularity of Bruce Lee, Toei made their own Bruce Lee-styled martial arts films, with The Street Fighter and its two sequels starring Sonny Chiba as well as a spin-off with a female lead similar to Hong Kong's Angela Mao called Sister Street Fighter. The success of Enter the Dragon briefly allowed an influx of Hong Kong films to Japan, but the trend did not last, with 28 Hong Kong films, mostly kung fu films, being released in 1974, and the number decreasing to five in 1975, four in 1977 and only two in 1978.

Ryuhei Kitamura, director of Versus (2000), said in 2004 that he grew frustrated with the Japanese film industry as producers felt they couldn't make action films in competition with Hong Kong or American productions. Versus grew to become popular outside of Japan, and Kitamura said he was aiming for the foreign audience, as he was disappointed with the current state of Japanese films. Kitamura's characters have been described as "a careful combination of the maverick independence of 1980s Hollywood action heroes and the calmness and acceptance of Japanese samurai, a consistent criticism of Japanese people today." Kitamura followed up Versus with two manga-inspired big-budget action films, Azumi and Sky High. Both released in 2003, the former was one of the highest-grossing movies of the year in Japan. Following LoveDeath, Kitamura's next directing work was in the United States.

Korea
The action cinema of South Korea mostly exited on the margins of the film industry in South Korea. The genre was initially called the Hwalkuk ("living theatre") was a term that indicated plays and films driven by action scenes, while this term has not been used regularly since the late 1970s, with "action movie" becoming the more familiar term. The Korean action films came from Japanese cinema, James Bond series, and Hong Kong action cinema. As North Korea borders China, it block access to the continent from a South Korean perspective, the Cold War allowed South Koreans to substitute deferred travel beyond the border through films with locations shot in Hong Kong. While melodrama and comedy were stapples in South Korean cinema, most action films were sporadic and tied to the use of locations such as Hong Kong. These films often featured one-legged or otherwise handicapped action characters similar to those of Japanese films (Zatoichi) and Hong Kong films (The One-Armed Swordsmen). These included Im Kwon-taek's Returned Left-Handed Man (1968), Aekkunun Bak's One-Eyd Park (1970) and Lee Doo-yong's Returned One-Legged Man (1974).

In the 1990s, the country's national cinema was in decline leading to Hong Kong gangster films filled in this void leading to large commercial success at the national box office. Early Korean heirs to Hong Kong action films include Rules of The Game (1994), Beat (1997), and Green Fish (1997) involving men who gain confidence and achieve personal growth as they embark on journeys to protect national state and meet devastating ends. South Korean cinema only received international attention in both art film and blockbuster formats towards the end of the 1990s. Films such as Chunhang (2000) and Memento Mori (2000) and action films Shiri (1999) and Nowhere to Hide (1999) received commercial releases in North America, Asia, and Europe. The success of the latter two films was unprecedented, and was followed by other South Korean action films in the early 2000s reaching the top of the local box office. These South Korean films mimic some traits of the Hong Kong action cinema, such melodramatic male bonding and marginalized women characters, while the Korean films also have greater elements of tragedy and romance emphasized.

Reception
Most martial arts films made before the mid-1960s were Cantonese-language productions. In comparison, Mandarin-language films were an integral part of Hong Kong cinema due to the influx of Shanghai film talent in the postwar period. These films were targeted at the more educated and more refined middle-class audiences who saw themselves as above the contemporary martial arts films.

Scott Higgins wrote in 2008 in Cinema Journal that Hollywood action films are both one of the most popular and popularly derided of contemporary cinema genres, stating that "in mainstream discourse, the genre is regularly lambasted for favoring spectacle over finely tuned narrative." Bordwell echoed this in his book, The Way Hollywood Tells It, writing that the reception to the genre as being "the emblem of what Hollywood does worst."

Acclaimed action films
Time Out magazine conducted a poll with fifty experts in the field of action cinema, including actors, critics, filmmakers and stuntmen. Out of the 101 films ranked in the poll, the following films were voted the top ten best action films of all time.

Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the "new school" of martial arts films that Shaw Brothers brought in 1965 featured what featured what Yip described as "strong, active female characters as protagonists." These female-centered films were challenged with the rise of a new male heroic prototype marked by a strong sense of youthful energy and defiance and by a propensity for violent action, identified with the films of Chang Cheh.

Hollywood
Violent female characters have been part of cinema since its early inception, with characters such as Kate Kelly brandishing a shotgun in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Women traditionally appear in action films as romantic interests, tomboys, or sidekicks to male protagonists.

Violent white women would appear in other genres as well such as the femme fatales in film noir and horror films of the 1970s. Violent women were common in action films since the 1960s. These films featured working-class women exacting revenge. Films of the 1970s featured black women such as Pam Grier in films like Foxy Brown (1974).

In the 1980s, a new symbolically transgressive character emerged in the form of Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986) and Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the title character in China O'Brien (1990) who were physically muscular and or enacted more extreme violence that was usually reserve for male action leads. In her book Contemporary Action Cinema (2011), Lisa Purse described the media response to female leads in action films reveal a discomfort about their presence and are often described with hesitant terms of women moving into territories that are perceived as masculine. Revealing woman in this form deconstructs the notion that traditional marks of masculinity are not exclusive to men and that musculature was not natural, but something to be achieved. Accusations of these muscular women of the era were levelled at that them by 1993 were that they were "men in drag" and that the films generally have to "explain" why their female leads displayed physical aggression and why they were "driven to do it." As the 1990s went on, Hollywood films began having more conventional looking women in their action films such as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).

A vibrant debate exists about whether hypersexualization is itself empowering and, if not, whether a hypersexualized female character can still represent strength and autonomy. Hypersexualized female action leads had tight fitting or revealing costumes that Tasker identified as "exaggerated statements of sexuality" and in the tradition of "fetishistic figure of fantasy" derives from comic books and soft pornography. This originated in television with characters like Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)) and Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)). These series popularity demonstrated a growing market for female action film heroes, in films of the 2000s like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Charlie's Angels (2000), Ultraviolet (2006), Salt (2010) and series like Underworld and Resident Evil. These series like their television series earlier, had their leads eroticized as active and physically capable while also being scantily-clad, hyper-feminized similar to the woman of exploitation films of the 1970s such as Caged Heat (1974) and Big Bad Mama (1974). While characters like Frank in The Transporter series are permitted to visibly sweat, strain and be bloodied, Purse found a reluctance for filmmakers to have their female leads have any appearance warping injuries to ensure a perfectly made-up face. Comedy is often used in films of this period to place the female leads in implausible elements, such as in Charlie's Angels, Fantastic Four (2005) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006). The fighting styles of women also tend towards more traditionally feminine fluid movements of martial arts, over using guns or directly punching.

Purse wrote that the contemporary female action film lead's sexualized brand had her in close proximity of post-feminism discourse about choice, power and sexuality. Marc O'Day interprets the action heroine's dual status of an active subject and sexual object was overturning the traditional gender binary because the films "assume that women are powerful" without resorting to justify her physical aggression through narratives involving maternal drive, mental instability or trauma. Purse found that female leads in films like Elektra (2005), Kill Bill, Underworld, Charlie's Angels and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) did showcase women having expensive cars, clothing, travel, homes and often high-paying jobs, but that this was only shown as being applicable to white middle-class women. Purse found that these women were empowered at the price of women of other ethnicities. This is seen in Aeon Flux (2005) where Sithandra dies protecting Aeon and Rain's death to make way for Alice in Resident Evil (2002).

title: Action film


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Heat (1995 film)

Heat is a 1995 American crime film written and directed by Michael Mann. It features an ensemble cast led by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, with Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, and Val Kilmer in supporting roles. The film follows the conflict between an LAPD detective, played by Pacino, and a career thief, played by De Niro, while also depicting its effect on their professional relationships and personal lives.

Mann wrote the original script for Heat in 1979, basing it on Chicago police officer Chuck Adamson's pursuit of criminal Neil McCauley, after whom De Niro's character is named. The script was first used for a television pilot developed by Mann, which became the 1989 television film L.A. Takedown after the pilot did not receive a series order. In 1994, Mann revisited the script to turn it into a feature film, co-producing the project with Art Linson. The film marks De Niro and Pacino's first on-screen appearance together following a period of acclaimed performances from both. Due to their esteemed reputations, promotion centered on their involvement.

Heat was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 15, 1995, to critical and commercial success. It grossed $187 million on a $60 million budget, while receiving positive reviews for Mann's direction and the performances of Pacino and De Niro. The film is regarded as one of the most influential films of its genre and has inspired several other works. A sequel was announced to be in development on July 20, 2022.

Plot
Neil McCauley is a professional thief based in Los Angeles. He and his crew – right-hand man Chris Shiherlis, enforcer Michael Cheritto, driver Gilbert Trejo, and newly hired hand Waingro – rob $1.6 million in bearer bonds from an armored car. During the heist, Waingro kills a guard without provocation, forcing the crew to eliminate the other two guards. Later, McCauley prepares to kill Waingro in retaliation for the deaths of the guards, but he escapes.

LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna and his team investigate the robbery. Hanna, a dedicated lawman and former Marine, has a strained relationship with his third wife Justine, and struggles to connect with his stepdaughter, Lauren. McCauley, who lives a solitary life, begins a relationship with Eady, a graphic designer.

McCauley's fence, Nate, suggests he sell the stolen bonds back to their original owner, money launderer Roger Van Zant. Van Zant pretends to agree but instead arranges an ambush. Anticipating a trap, McCauley and his crew counter-ambush and kill the hitmen. Afterwards, McCauley calls Van Zant and vows revenge. An informant of the LAPD connects Cheritto to the robbery, and Hanna's team begins monitoring him, leading to the rest of the crew and their next target, a precious metals depository. Hanna's team stakes out the depository, but when a careless officer makes a noise, McCauley aborts the heist.

McCauley's crew agree to one last bank robbery worth $12.2 million. Hanna tracks McCauley and pulls him over on the 105 Freeway, inviting him to coffee. They discuss their dedication to their respective jobs and the limitations of their personal lives; Hanna describes his failing marriage and McCauley confides that he is similarly isolated. Though they admit their respect for one another, both acknowledge that they will kill the other if necessary. Waingro makes a deal with Van Zant to help eliminate McCauley's crew. Trejo quits the bank robbery at the last moment, claiming the LAPD is following him too closely. McCauley recruits an old colleague, Don Breedan, to take Trejo's place as the getaway driver, and the crew carries out the heist.

Acting on a tip from Van Zant's bodyguard, the LAPD intercepts the crew as they leave the bank, leading to a massive shootout. Breedan and Cheritto are killed, while McCauley escapes with a wounded Shiherlis. McCauley takes Shiherlis to a doctor to treat his wounds and leaves him with Nate. Suspecting Trejo tipped off the LAPD, McCauley arrives at his house to confront him, but finds him mortally wounded and his wife killed. Trejo reveals Waingro and Van Zant forced him to divulge the bank heist plans before asking McCauley to kill him. McCauley breaks into Van Zant's mansion and shoots him dead. Upon learning of McCauley's connection to Waingro and that the latter is hiding in a hotel, Hanna decides to use Waingro as bait to lure McCauley. As McCauley prepares to flee the country, Eady discovers his criminal identity, but agrees to go with him. Before escaping, Shiherlis attempts to reconcile with his wife Charlene, who has been forced by the LAPD to bring him in. As Shiherlis encounters Charlene at her safe house, she warns him away with a hand gesture, and he escapes.

Having separated from Justine, Hanna finds Lauren has attempted suicide in his own hotel room and rushes her to the hospital; he reconciles with Justine after they learn that Lauren has survived, although they both agree that their relationship will never work. McCauley drives to the airport with Eady, but when Nate gives him Waingro's location, he abandons his usual caution to seek revenge. McCauley infiltrates the hotel, pulls the fire alarm, bursts into Waingro's room and kills him. As McCauley returns to Eady, he is spotted by Hanna. McCauley abandons Eady, fleeing onto the tarmac at the airport, pursued by Hanna. The two stalk each other, and Hanna shoots McCauley in the chest. Hanna takes McCauley's hand as McCauley dies of his wounds.

Cast
Additional cast members include Martin Ferrero as a construction clerk and Hazelle Goodman as the mother of a prostitute murdered by Waingro. Featured as members of the LAPD are Paul Herman as Sergeant Heinz, Cindy Katz as forensics investigator Cindy, and Dan Martin as Detective Harry Dieter. Stuntmen Rick Avery, Bill McIntosh, and Thomas Rosales Jr. portray the armored truck guards. Patricia Healy appears as a woman in a relationship with Bosko and Yvonne Zima plays the girl taken hostage by Cheritto. News reporter Claudia is portrayed by Farrah Forke. Bud Cort makes an uncredited appearance as restaurant owner Solenko.

Factual basis
Heat is based on the true story of Neil McCauley, a calculating criminal and ex-Alcatraz inmate who was tracked down by Detective Chuck Adamson in 1964. In 1961, McCauley was transferred from Alcatraz to McNeil, as mentioned in the film. He was released in 1962 and immediately began planning

On March 25, 1964, McCauley and members of his regular crew followed an armored car that delivered money to a National Tea grocery store at 4720 S. Cicero Avenue, Chicago. Once the drop was made, three of the robbers entered the store. They threatened the clerks and stole money bags worth $13,137 (equivalent to $ in ) before they sped off in a rainstorm amid police gunfire.

McCauley's crew was unaware that Adamson and eight other detectives had blocked off all potential exits; the getaway car turned down an alley and the robbers saw the blockade and realized that they were trapped. All four exited the vehicle and began firing. Russell Bredon (or Breaden) and Michael Parille were slain in an alley while Miklos Polesti (on whom Chris Shiherlis is very loosely based) shot his way out and escaped. McCauley was shot to death on the lawn of a nearby home. He was 50 years old and the prime suspect in several burglaries. Polesti was caught days later and sent to prison. Polesti was still alive in 2011.

Adamson went on to a successful career as a television and film producer, and he died in 2008 at age 71. Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies is dedicated to Adamson's memory.

The character of Nate played by Jon Voight is based on Edward Bunker, who served as a consultant to Mann on the film.

Canceled TV series
In 1979, Mann wrote a 180-page draft of Heat. He re-wrote it after making Thief in 1981 hoping to find a director to make it and mentioning it publicly in a promotional interview for his 1983 film The Keep. In the late 1980s, he offered the film to his friend, film director Walter Hill, who turned him down. Following the success of Miami Vice and Crime Story, Mann was to produce a new crime television show for NBC. He turned the script that would become Heat into a 90-minute pilot for a television series featuring the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery–Homicide division, featuring Scott Plank in the role of Hanna and Alex McArthur playing the character of Neil McCauley, renamed to Patrick McLaren. The pilot was shot in only nineteen days, atypical for Mann. The script was abridged down to almost a third of its original length, omitting many subplots that made it into Heat. The network was unhappy with Plank as the lead actor, and asked Mann to recast Hanna's role. Mann declined and the show was canceled and the pilot aired on August 27, 1989, as a television film entitled L.A. Takedown which was later released on VHS and DVD in Europe.

Pre-production
On April 5, 1994, Mann was reported to have abandoned his earlier plan to shoot a biopic of James Dean in favor of directing Heat, producing it with Art Linson. The film was marketed as the first on-screen appearance of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together in the same scene—both actors had previously starred in The Godfather Part II, but owing to the film's double story structure, they were never seen in the same scene. Pacino and De Niro were Mann's first choices for the roles of Hanna and McCauley, respectively, and they both immediately agreed to act.

Mann assigned Janice Polley, a former collaborator on The Last of the Mohicans, as the film's location manager. Scouting locations lasted from August to December 1994. Mann requested locations which had not appeared on film before, in which Polley was successful—fewer than 10 of the 85 filming locations were previously used. The most challenging shooting location proved to be Los Angeles International Airport, with the film crew almost missing out due to a threat to the airport by the Unabomber. On the DVD commentary, Mann noted it would be impossible to film the airport climax in the same way following the events of 9/11.

To make the long shootout more realistic they hired British ex-Special Air Service sergeant Andy McNab as a technical weapons trainer and adviser. He designed a weapons training curriculum to train the actors for three months using live ammunition before shooting with blanks for the actual take and worked with training them for the bank robbery.

Casting
De Niro was the first cast member to receive the film script, showing it to Pacino, who also wanted to be a part of the film. De Niro believed that Heat was a "very good story, had a particular feel to it, a reality and authenticity." In 2016, Pacino revealed that he viewed his character as having been under the influence of cocaine throughout the whole film.

Mann took Kilmer, Sizemore, and De Niro to Folsom State Prison to interview actual career criminals to prepare for their roles. While researching her role, Judd met several former prostitutes who became housewives.

Keanu Reeves was offered the role of Chris Shiherlis, but he turned it down in favor of playing Hamlet at the Manitoba Theatre Centre. As a result, Val Kilmer was given the role.

Filming
Principal photography for Heat lasted 107 days during the summer of 1995. All of the shooting was done on location, due to Mann's decision not to use a soundstage.

The film's cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, used a combination of natural and practical lighting to capture grittiness and realism for the film. The film's visual style also captured the vastness of Los Angeles and the isolation of its characters within the urban sprawl. Mann and Spinotti often used wide shots and long takes to create a sense of scale and immersion.

Both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro prepared extensively for their roles. They spent time with real detectives and criminals to understand their characters in depth. The diner scene between Pacino and De Niro was shot with minimal rehearsals to maintain the spontaneity and intensity of their interaction. Mann used multiple cameras to capture the scene from different angles, focusing on close-ups to highlight the tension and subtleties of each actor's performance.

Key Filming Locations
Downtown Los Angeles: The film's bank heist and subsequent shootout were filmed at 444 S. Flower Street, also known as the Citigroup Center. The area included landmarks such as the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and Central Library.

Bob's Big Boy: The scene where Donald Breedan (Dennis Haysbert) is recruited was shot at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, California.

The Hilton Los Angeles Airport: Several preparatory scenes for the final showdown were shot at this location.

Kate Mantilini Restaurant: The diner scene of the meeting between De Niro and Pacino was filmed at Kate Mantilini in Beverly Hills, and was frequented by celebrities until its closure in 2014.

Sound Design
"Heat" is recognized for its realistic sound design, particularly during the iconic bank heist scene. Real gunfire sounds were used to capture the intensity and chaos of the shootout. The sound design plays a significant role in immersing the audience in the action, making the sequences feel immediate and visceral.

Editing
The editing of "Heat" focuses on maintaining its narrative pace and tension. Editor Dov Hoenig worked closely with Mann to ensure that each scene flowed naturally and kept the audience engaged. The film's editing balanced intense action sequences with quieter, character-driven moments, which is noted for creating a dynamic and compelling viewing experience.

Soundtrack
On December 19, 1995, Warner Bros. Records released a soundtrack album on cassette and CD to accompany the film, entitled Heat: Music from the Motion Picture. The album was produced by Matthias Gohl. It contains a 29-minute selection of the film score composed by Elliot Goldenthal, as well as songs by other artists such as U2 and Brian Eno (collaborating as Passengers), Terje Rypdal, Moby, and Lisa Gerrard. Heat used an abridged instrumental rendition of the Joy Division song "New Dawn Fades" by Moby, which also features in the same form on the soundtrack album. Mann reused the Einstürzende Neubauten track "Armenia" in his 1999 film The Insider. The film ends with Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters", a different version of which was included at the end of the soundtrack album.

Mann and Goldenthal decided on an atmospheric situation for the film soundtrack. Goldenthal used a setup consisting of multiple guitars, which he termed "guitar orchestra", and thought it brought the film score closer to a European style. The soundtrack was noted for lack of a central theme. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com criticized the omission from the album of much music heard in the film due to the film's length, but praised the album as a decent listening experience, and Goldenthal's score as "psychologically engaging and intellectually challenging", believing it to be one of Goldenthal's best. AllMusic called it a "soundtrack for the mind ... full of twists and turns". Musicfromthemovies.com thought of the album as uncharacteristic for Goldenthal's style, calling the atmosphere "absolutely electrifying".

Box office
Heat was released on December 15, 1995, and opened at the box office with $8.4 million from 1,325 theaters, finishing in third place behind Jumanji and Toy Story. It went on to earn a total gross of $67.4 million in United States box offices, and $120 million in foreign box offices. Heat was ranked the #25 highest-grossing film of 1995.

Home media
Heat was released on VHS on November 12, 1996, by Warner Home Video. Due to its running time, the film had to be released on two cassettes. A DVD release followed on July 27, 1999. A two-disc special-edition DVD was released by Warner Home Video on February 22, 2005, featuring an audio commentary by Michael Mann, deleted scenes, and numerous documentaries detailing the film's production. This edition contains the original theatrical cut.

The initial Blu-ray Disc was released by Warner Home Video on November 10, 2009, featuring a high-definition film transfer, supervised by Mann. Among the disc extras were Mann's audio commentary, a one-hour documentary about the making of the film and ten minutes worth of scenes cut from the film. As well as approving the look of the transfer, Mann also recut two scenes slightly differently, referring to them as "new content changes".

A Director's Definitive Edition Blu-ray was released on May 9, 2017, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, who acquired the distribution rights to the film through their part-ownership of Regency back in 2015. Sourced from a 4K remaster of the film supervised by Mann, the two-disc set contains all the extras from the 2009 Blu-ray, along with two filmmakers panels from 2015 and 2016, one of which was moderated by Christopher Nolan. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Ultimate Collector's Edition of Heat that contains the Director's Definitive Edition of the film on UHD Blu-ray and Blu-ray along with legacy bonus materials was released on August 9, 2022, by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (under the 20th Century Studios label), coinciding with the release date of Mann's sequel novel. Unlike the previous home media releases, the Director's Definitive Edition Blu-ray and the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Ultimate Collector's Edition did not feature the Warner Bros. Pictures logo at the beginning, although the in-credit closing is retained.

Heat was broadcast on NBC television on January 3, 1999, in a significantly edited version. Mann had offered the network scenes which had been filmed but omitted from the theatrical edit in hopes of having the film shown in four hours (with commercials) over two nights. Instead, NBC chose to cut nearly 40 minutes from the theatrical version so that Heat could be shown in a three-hour time slot (with commercials). Mann told Variety, "They cut so much out of the movie that they destroyed the narrative of the film along with its integrity.... Too much time was taken out of the film that wasn't due to language or other content." As a result, Mann had his director's credit on the TV version replaced with the pseudonym "Alan Smithee".

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 151 reviews and an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though Al Pacino and Robert De Niro share but a handful of screen minutes together, Heat is an engrossing crime drama that draws compelling performances from its stars – and confirms Michael Mann's mastery of the genre." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four. He described Mann's script as "uncommonly literate", with a psychological insight into the symbiotic relationship between police and criminals, and the fractured intimacy between the male and female characters: "It's not just an action picture. Above all, the dialogue is complex enough to allow the characters to say what they're thinking: They are eloquent, insightful, fanciful, poetic when necessary. They're not trapped with cliches. Of the many imprisonments possible in our world, one of the worst must be to be inarticulate – to be unable to tell another person what you really feel." Simon Cote of The Austin Chronicle called the film "one of the most intelligent crime-thrillers to come along in years", and said Pacino and De Niro's scenes together were "poignant and gripping."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called the film a "sleek, accomplished piece of work, meticulously controlled and completely involving. The dark end of the street doesn't get much more inviting than this." Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "Stunningly made and incisively acted by a large and terrific cast, Michael Mann's ambitious study of the relativity of good and evil stands apart from other films of its type by virtue of its extraordinarily rich characterizations and its thoughtful, deeply melancholy take on modern life." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a B− rating, saying that "Mann's action scenes ... have an existential, you-are-there jitteriness," but called the heist-planning and Hanna's investigation scenes "dry, talky."

Rolling Stone ranked Heat #28 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of the '90s", and The Guardian ranked it #22 on its list of "The Greatest Crime Films of All Time", while other publications have noted its influence on numerous subsequent films.

Although it did not receive any major award nominations, the film was nominated for Best Action/Adventure Film and Kilmer for Best Supporting Actor at the Saturn Awards but lost to both The Usual Suspects and 12 Monkeys respectively.

Impact
French gangster Rédoine Faïd told Mann at a film festival "You were my technical adviser". The media described later robberies as resembling scenes from Heat, including armored car robberies in South Africa, Colombia, Denmark, and Norway and the 1997 North Hollywood shootout, in which Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu robbed the North Hollywood branch of the Bank of America and, similarly to the film, were confronted by the LAPD as they left the bank. A copy of "Heat" was found in the VCR at Phillips' residence. This shootout is considered one of the longest and bloodiest events of its type in American police history. Both robbers were killed, and eleven police officers and seven civilians were injured during the shootout. Heat was widely referenced during the coverage of the shootout.

For his 2008 film The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan drew inspiration in his portrayal of Gotham City from Heat in order "to tell a very large, city story or the story of a city". In 2016, a year after the 20th anniversary of Heat, Nolan moderated a Q&A session with Michael Mann and cast and crew at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Heat was one of the inspirations behind the highly influential 2001 video game Grand Theft Auto III as well as the 2008 sequel Grand Theft Auto IV, notably the mission "Three Leaf Clover", which was inspired by the climactic bank robbery and police shootout, and the 2013 sequel Grand Theft Auto V, notably the mission "Blitz Play" where the crew blocks and then knocks over an armored car in order to rob it.

Director Mia Hansen-Løve has said she is "obsessed" with Heat and said "the themes of Heat, actually, are themes of my films, except in a very different way, in a very different world".

Subsequent works
On March 16, 2016, Mann announced that he was developing a Heat prequel novel, as a part of launching his company Michael Mann Books. On April 27, 2017, Reed Farrel Coleman joined the project as co-author. On May 15, 2020, Mann stated that the novel would function as both a prequel and a sequel, with plot taking place before and after the film's main events. By January 19, 2022, it was revealed that the novel would be a collaboration between Mann and Meg Gardiner; it was subsequently released in August 2022. The title is Heat 2.

In September 2019, Michael Mann stated that he intends to produce an adaptation of the novel, acknowledging film and television as possible mediums for release. By July 5, 2022, Mann reaffirmed his plans to adapt the novel follow-up into a feature film, while stating that the principal cast from the first installment may be recast for the adaptation. In April 2023, it was reported that the sequel was in development, with Adam Driver in talks to play young McCauley.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Heat (1995 film)


text:
Hindu Kush

The Hindu Kush is an 800 km mountain range on the Iranian Plateau in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH); to the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border.

The eastern end of the Hindu Kush in the north merges with the Karakoram Range. Towards its southern end, it connects with the White Mountains near the Kabul River. It divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south. The range has numerous high snow-capped peaks, with the highest point being Tirich Mir or Terichmir at 7708 m in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

The Hindu Kush range region was a historically significant center of Buddhism, with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. The range and communities settled in it hosted ancient monasteries, important trade networks and travelers between Central Asia and South Asia. While the vast majority of the region has been majority-Muslim for several centuries now, certain portions of the Hindu Kush only became Islamized relatively recently, such as Kafiristan, which retained ancient polytheistic beliefs until the 19th century when it was converted to Islam by the Durrani Empire and renamed Nuristan ("land of light"). The Hindu Kush range has also been the passageway for invasions of the Indian subcontinent, and continues to be important to contemporary warfare in Afghanistan.

Name origin
The earliest known usage of the Persian name Hindu Kush occurs on a map published about 1000 CE. Some modern scholars remove the space and refer to the mountain range as Hindukush.

Etymology
Hindu Kush is generally translated as "Killer of Hindu"    or "Hindu-Killer" by most writers. Boyle's Persian–English dictionary indicates that the Persian suffix -koš is the present stem of the verb 'to kill' (koštan ). According to linguist Francis Joseph Steingass, the suffix -kush means "a male; (imp. of kushtan in comp.) a killer, who kills, slays, murders, oppresses as azhdaha-kush ['dragon-slayer']."

The term was earliest used by Ibn Battuta. According to him, Hindu Kush means Hindu Killer as non-Muslim slaves from the Indian subcontinent died in the harsh climatic conditions of the mountains while being taken from India to Turkestan.

Several other theories have been propounded as to the origins of the name. According to Nigel Allan, the term Hindu Kush has two alternate meanings i.e 'sparkling snows of India' and 'mountains of India', with Kush possibly being a soft variant of the Persian kuh ('mountain'). Allan states that Hindu Kush was the frontier boundary to Arab geographers. Yet others suggest that the name may be derived from ancient Avestan, meaning 'water mountain'.

According to Hobson-Jobson, a 19th-century British dictionary, Hindukush might be a corruption of the ancient Latin Indicus (Caucasus); the entry mentions the interpretation first given by Ibn Batuta as a popular theory already at that time, despite doubts cast upon it.

Other names
In Vedic Sanskrit, the range was known as upariśyena, and in Avestan, as upāirisaēna (from Proto-Iranian *upārisaina- 'covered with juniper'). It can alternatively be interpreted as "beyond the reach of eagles". In the time of Alexander the Great, the mountain range was referred to as the Caucasus Indicus (as opposed to the Greater Caucasus range between the Caspian and Black Seas), and as Paropamisos (see Paropamisadae) by Hellenic Greeks in the late first millennium BCE.

Some 19th-century encyclopedias and gazetteers state that the term Hindu Kush originally applied only to the peak in the area of the Kushan Pass, which had become a center of the Kushan Empire by the first century.

Geography

The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH) and is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram and the Himalayas. It divides the valley of the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus) to the north from the Indus River valley to the south. The range has numerous high snow-capped peaks, with the highest point being Tirich Mir or Terichmir at 7708 m in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. To the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border. The eastern end of the Hindu Kush in the north merges with the Karakoram Range. Towards its southern end, it connects with the Spin Ghar Range near the Kabul River.

Peaks
Many peaks of the range are between 14500 and 17000 ft; however, some are much higher, with an average peak height of 4500 m. The mountains of the Hindu Kush range diminish in height as they stretch westward. Near Kabul, in the west, they attain heights of 3500 to 4,000 m; in the east they extend from 4500 to 6,000 m.

Passes
Numerous high passes ("kotal") transect the mountains, forming a strategically important network for the transit of caravans. The most important mountain pass in Afghanistan is the Salang Pass (Kotal-e Salang) (3878 m) north of Kabul, which links southern Afghanistan to northern Afghanistan. The Salang Tunnel at 3363 m and the extensive network of galleries on the approach roads was constructed with Soviet financial and technological assistance and involved drilling 1.7 mi through the heart of the Hindu Kush; since the start of the wars in Afghanistan it has been an active area of armed conflict with various parties trying to control the strategic tunnel. The range has several other passes in Afghanistan, the lowest of which is the southern Shibar pass (9000 ft) where the Hindu Kush range terminates.

Before the Salang Tunnel, another feat of engineering was the road constructed through the Tang-e Gharu gorge near Kabul, replacing the ancient Lataband Pass and greatly reducing travel time towards the Pakistani border at the Khyber Pass.

Other mountain passes are at altitudes of about 12000 ft or higher, including the Broghil Pass at 12,460 feet in Pakistan, and the Dorah Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan at 14,000 feet. Other high passes in Pakistan include the Lowari Pass at 10,200 feet, the Gomal Pass. The Darmodar Aghost Pass is at elevation of 14341 ft. The Ishkoman Aghost Pass is at elevation of 15049 ft.

Watershed
The Hindu Kush form the boundary between the Indus watershed in South Asia, and Amu Darya watershed in Central Asia. Melt water from snow and ice feeds major river systems in Central Asia: the Amu Darya (which feeds the Aral Sea), Helmand River (which is a major source of water for the Sistan Basin in southern Afghanistan and Iran), and the Kabul River – the last of which is a major tributary of the Indus River. Smaller rivers with headwaters in the range include the Khash, the Farah and the Arashkan (Harut) rivers. The basins of these rivers serve the ecology and economy of the region, but the water flow in these rivers greatly fluctuates, and reliance on these has been a historical problem with extended droughts being commonplace. The eastern end of the range, with the highest peaks, high snow accumulation allows to long-term water storage.

Geology
Geologically, the range is rooted in the formation of the subcontinent from a region of Gondwana that drifted away from East Africa about 160 million years ago, around the Middle Jurassic period. The Indian subcontinent, Australia and islands of the Indian Ocean rifted further, drifting northeastwards, with the Indian subcontinent colliding with the Eurasian Plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Palaeocene. This collision gradually formed the Himalayas, including the Hindu Kush.

The Hindu Kush are a part of the "young Eurasian mountain range consisting of metamorphic rocks such as schist, gneiss and marble, as well as of intrusives such as granite, diorite of different age and size". The northern regions of the Hindu Kush witness Himalayan winter and have glaciers, while its southeastern end witnesses the fringe of Indian subcontinent summer monsoons.

The Hindu Kush range remains geologically active and is still rising; it is prone to earthquakes. The Hindu Kush system stretches about 966 km laterally, and its median north–south measurement is about 240 km. The mountains are orographically described in several parts. Peaks in the western Hindu Kush rise to over 5100 m and stretch between Darra-ye Sekari and the Shibar Pass in the west and the Khawak Pass in the east. The central Hindu Kush peaks rise to over 6800 m, and this section has numerous spurs between the Khawak Pass in the east and the Durāh Pass in the west. In 2005 and 2015 there were some major earthquakes.

The eastern Hindu Kush, also known as the "High Hindu Kush", is mostly located in northern Pakistan and the Nuristan and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan with peaks over 7000 m. This section extends from the Durāh Pass to the Baroghil Pass at the border between northeastern Afghanistan and north Pakistan. The Chitral District of Pakistan is home to Tirich Mir, Noshaq, and Istoro Nal – the highest peaks in the Hindu Kush. The ridges between Khawak Pass and Badakshan is over 5800 m and are called the Kaja Mohammed range.

Land cover and land use
ICIMOD's first annual regional 30-meter resolution land cover database of HKH generated using public domain Landsat images demonstrated that grassland was the most dominant land cover, followed by barren land, which includes areas with bare areas. In 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, grassland covered 37.2%, 37.6%, 38.7%, and 38.23%, respectively, of the total area of the HKH region. During the same years, the second dominant land cover was barren areas, including bare soil and bare rock. In 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, bare soil and bare rock covered 32.1, 31.37, 30.35, and 30.69%. The cropland cover in 2000 was about 5.1% and about 5.41% in 2015. Snow and glacier areas covered about 4% of the high-elevation section in 2018, while waterbodies and riverbeds/channels together accounted for 2%. The weather conditions also have an impact on the land cover patterns across the regions. In the HKH, forest cover is mostly distributed in the south and south-eastern areas, where precipitation is more; the grasslands are mostly distributed in the north and north-western parts, while cropland is mostly found in the southern part of the region.

Flora and fauna
The mountainous areas of Hindu Kush range are mostly barren or, at the most, sparsely sprinkled with trees and stunted bushes. From about 1300 to 2300 m, states Yarshater, "sclerophyllous forests are predominant with Quercus and Olea (wild olive); above that, up to a height of about 3300 m one finds coniferous forests with Cedrus, Picea, Abies, Pinus, and junipers". The inner valleys of the Hindu Kush see little rain and have desert vegetation. On the other hand, Eastern Himalaya is home to multiple biodiversity hotspots, and 353 new species (242 plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds, two mammals and 61+ invertebrates) have been discovered there in between 1998 and 2008, with an average of 35 new species finds every year. With Eastern Himalaya included, the entire Hindu Kush Himalaya region is home to an estimated 35,000+ species of plants and 200+ species of animals.

History
The high altitudes of the mountains have historical significance in South and Central Asia. The Hindu Kush range was a major center of Buddhism with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. It has also been the passageway during the invasions of the Indian subcontinent, a region where the Taliban and al-Qaeda grew, and a scene of modern era warfare in Afghanistan. Ancient mines producing lapis lazuli are found in Kowkcheh Valley, while gem-grade emeralds are found north of Kabul in the valley of the Panjsher River and some of its tributaries. According to Walter Schumann, the West Hindu Kush mountains have been the source of the finest Lapis lazuli for thousands of years.

Buddhism was widespread in the ancient Hindu Kush region. The ancient artwork of Buddhism includes the giant rock-carved statues called the Bamiyan Buddhas, in the southern and western end of the Hindu Kush. These statues were destroyed by Taliban Islamists in 2001. The southeastern valleys of Hindu Kush connecting towards the Indus Valley region were a major center that hosted monasteries, religious scholars from distant lands, trade networks and merchants of the ancient Indian subcontinent.

One of the early Buddhist schools, the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda, was prominent in the area of Bamiyan. The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Lokottaravāda monastery in the 7th century CE, at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Birchbark and palm leaf manuscripts of texts in this monastery's collection, including Mahāyāna sūtras, have been discovered in the caves of Hindu Kush, and these are now a part of the Schøyen Collection. Some manuscripts are in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, while others are in Sanskrit and written in forms of the Gupta script.

According to Alfred Foucher, the Hindu Kush and nearby regions gradually converted to Buddhism by the 1st century CE, and this region was the base from where Buddhism crossed the Hindu Kush expanding into the Oxus valley region of Central Asia. Buddhism later disappeared and locals were forced to convert to Islam. Richard Bulliet also proposes that the area north of Hindu Kush was center of a new sect that had spread as far as Kurdistan, remaining in existence until the Abbasid times. The area eventually came under the control of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul. The Islamic conquest of the area happened under Sabuktigin who conquered Jayapala's dominion west of Peshawar in the 10th century.

Ancient
The significance of the Hindu Kush mountain ranges has been recorded since the time of Darius I of the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander entered the Indian subcontinent through the Hindu Kush as his army moved past the Afghan Valleys in the spring of 329 BCE. He moved towards the Indus Valley river region in the Indian subcontinent in 327 BCE;_his armies built several towns in this region over the intervening two years.

After Alexander died in 323 BCE, the region became part of the Seleucid Empire, according to the ancient history of Strabo written in the 1st century BCE, before it became a part of the Indian Maurya Empire around 305 BCE. The region became a part of the Kushan Empire around the start of the common era.

Medieval era
The lands north of the Hindu Kush, in the Hephthalite dominion, Buddhism was the predominant religion by mid 1st millennium CE. These Buddhists were religiously tolerant and they co-existed with followers of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity. This Central Asia region along the Hindu Kush was taken over by Western Turks and Arabs by the eighth century, facing wars with mostly Iranians. One major exception was the period in the mid to late seventh century when the Tang dynasty from China destroyed the Northern Turks and extended its rule all the way to the Oxus River valley and regions of Central Asia bordering all along the Hindu Kush.

The subcontinent and valleys of the Hindu Kush remained unconquered by the Islamic armies until the 9th century, even though they had conquered the southern regions of the Indus River valley such as Sind. Kabul fell to the army of Al-Ma'mun, the seventh Abbasid caliph, in 808 and the local king agreed to accept Islam and pay annual tributes to the caliph. However, states André Wink, inscriptional evidence suggests that the Kabul area near Hindu Kush had an early presence of Islam. When the extraction of silver from the mines in the Hindu Kush was at its greatest (c.850), the value of silver in relation to gold dropped, and the content of silver in the Carolingian denarius was increased so that it should maintain its intrinsic value.

The range came under the control of the Hindu Shahi dynasty of Kabul but was conquered by Sabuktigin who took all of Jayapala's dominion west of Peshawar.

Mahmud of Ghazni came to power in 998 CE, in Ghazna, Afghanistan, south of Kabul and the Hindu Kush range. He began a military campaign that rapidly brought both sides of the Hindu Kush range under his rule. From his mountainous Afghani base, he systematically raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030.

Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries of kingdoms, sacked cities, and destroyed Hindu temples, with each campaign starting every spring, but he and his army returned to Ghazni and the Hindu Kush base before monsoons arrived in the northwestern part of the subcontinent. He retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab.

In 1017, the Iranian Islamic historian Al-Biruni was deported after a war that Mahmud of Ghazni won, to the northwest Indian subcontinent under Mahmud's rule. Al Biruni stayed in the region for about fifteen years, learnt Sanskrit, and translated many Indian texts, and wrote about Indian society, culture, sciences, and religion in Persian and Arabic. He stayed for some time in the Hindu Kush region, particularly near Kabul. In 1019, he recorded and described a solar eclipse in what is the modern era Laghman Province of Afghanistan through which Hindu Kush pass. Al Biruni also wrote about early history of the Hindu Kush region and Kabul kings, who ruled the region long before he arrived, but this history is inconsistent with other records available from that era. Al Biruni was supported by Sultan Mahmud. Al Biruni found it difficult to get access to Indian literature locally in the Hindu Kush area, and to explain this he wrote, "Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country, and performed wonderful exploits by which the Hindus became the atoms scattered in all directions, and like a tale of old in the mouth of the people. (...) This is the reason, too, why Hindu sciences have retired far from those parts of the country conquered by us, and have fled to places which our hand cannot yet reach, to Kashmir, Benares and other places".

In the late 12th century, the historically influential Ghurid empire led by Mu'izz al-Din ruled the Hindu Kush region. He was influential in seeding the Delhi Sultanate, shifting the base of his Sultanate from south of the Hindu Kush range and Ghazni towards the Yamuna River and Delhi. He thus helped bring Islamic rule to the northern plains of the Indian subcontinent. In the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, Genghis Khan invaded the region from the northeast in one of his many conquests to create the huge Mongol Empire. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta arrived in the Delhi Sultanate by passing through the Hindu Kush. The mountain passes of the Hindu Kush range were used by Timur and his army and they crossed to launch the 1398 invasion of the northern Indian subcontinent. Timur, also known as Temur or Tamerlane in Western scholarly literature, marched with his army to Delhi, plundering and killing all the way. He arrived in the capital Delhi where his army. Then he carried the wealth and the captured slaves, returning to his capital through the Hindu Kush.

Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, was a patrilineal descendant of Timur with roots in Central Asia. He first established himself and his army in Kabul and the Hindu Kush region. In 1526, he made his move into north India, and won the Battle of Panipat, ending the last Delhi Sultanate dynasty, and starting the era of the Mughals.

Slavery
Slavery, as with all major ancient and medieval societies, has been a part of Central Asia and South Asia history. The Hindu Kush mountain passes connected the slave markets of Central Asia with slaves seized in South Asia. The seizure and transportation of slaves from the Indian subcontinent became intense in and after the 8th century CE, with evidence suggesting that the slave transport involved "hundreds of thousands" of slaves from India in different periods of Islamic rule era. According to John Coatsworth and others, the slave trading operations during the pre-Akbar Mughal and Delhi Sultanate era "sent thousands of Hindus every year north to Central Asia to pay for horses and other goods". However, the interaction between Central Asia and South Asia through the Hindu Kush was not limited to slavery, it included trading in food, goods, horses and weapons.

The practice of raiding tribes, hunting, and kidnapping people for slave trading continued through the 19th century, at an extensive scale, around the Hindu Kush. According to a British Anti-Slavery Society report of 1874, the governor of Faizabad, Mir Ghulam Bey, kept 8,000 horses and cavalrymen who routinely captured non-Muslims as well as Shia Muslims as slaves. Others alleged to be involved in the slave trade were feudal lords such as Ameer Sheer Ali. The isolated communities in the Hindu Kush were one of the targets of these slave-hunting expeditions.

Modern era
The people of Kafiristan practiced had ancient polytheistic traditions until the 1896 invasion and conversion to Islam at the hands of Afghans under Amir Abdur Rahman Khan.

British era

The Hindu Kush served as a geographical barrier to the British Empire, leading to a paucity of information and scarce direct interaction between the British colonial officials and Central Asian peoples. The British had to rely on tribal chiefs, Sadozai and Barakzai noblemen for information, and they generally downplayed the reports of slavery and other violence for geo-political strategic considerations. The first British invasion of Afghanistan ended in disaster in 1842, when 16,000 British soldiers and camp followers were massacred as they retreated through the Hindu Kush back to India.

After 1947

In the colonial era, the Hindu Kush was considered, informally, the dividing line between Russian and British areas of influence in Afghanistan. During the Cold War the Hindu Kush range became a strategic theatre, especially during the 1980s when Soviet forces and their Afghan allies fought the Afghan mujahideen channelled through Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal and the end of the Cold War, many mujahideen morphed into Taliban and al-Qaeda forces imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic law (Sharia), with Kabul, these mountains, and other parts of Afghanistan as their base. Other Mujahideen joined the Northern Alliance to oppose the Taliban rule.

After the 11 September 2001 terror attacks in New York City and Washington D.C., the American and ISAF campaign against Al Qaeda and their Taliban allies made the Hindu Kush once again a militarised conflict zone.

Climate change

The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment concluded that between 1901 and 2014, the Hindu Kush Himalaya (or HKH) region had already experienced warming of 0.1 °C per decade, with the warming rate accelerating to 0.2 °C per decade over the past 50 years. Over the past 50 years, the frequency of warm days and nights had also increased by 1.2 days and 1.7 nights per decade, while the frequency of extreme warm days and nights had increased by 1.26 days and 2.54 nights per decade. There was also a corresponding decline of 0.5 cold days, 0.85 extreme cold days, 1 cold night, and 2.4 extreme cold nights per decade. The length of the growing season has increased by 4.25 days per decade.

There is less conclusive evidence of light precipitation becoming less frequent while heavy precipitation became both more frequent and more intense. Finally, since 1970s glaciers have retreated everywhere in the region beside Karakoram, eastern Pamir, and western Kunlun, where there has been an unexpected increase in snowfall. Glacier retreat had been followed by an increase in the number of glacial lakes, some of which may be prone to dangerous floods.

In the future, if the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 °C of global warming is not exceeded, warming in the HKH will be at least 0.3 °C higher, and at least 0.7 °C higher in the hotspots of northwest Himalaya and Karakoram. If the Paris Agreement goals are broken, then the region is expected to warm by 1.7–2.4 °C in the near future (2036–2065) and by 2.2–3.3 °C (2066–2095) near the end of the century under the "intermediate" Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5).

Under the high-warming RCP8.5 scenario where the annual emissions continue to increase for the rest of the century, the expected regional warming is 2.3–3.2 °C and 4.2–6.5 °C, respectively. Under all scenarios, winters will warm more than the summers, and the Tibetan Plateau, the central Himalayan Range, and the Karakoram will continue to warm more than the rest of the region. Climate change will also lead to the degradation of up to 81% of the region's permafrost by the end of the century.

Future precipitation is projected to increase as well, but CMIP5 models struggle to make specific projections due to the region's topography: the most certain finding is that the monsoon precipitation in the region will increase by 4–12% in the near future and by 4–25% in the long term. There has also been modelling of the changes in snow cover, but it is limited to the end of century under the RCP 8.5 scenario: it projects declines of 30–50% in the Indus Basin, 50–60% in the Ganges basin, and 50–70% in the Brahmaputra Basin, as the snowline elevation in these regions will rise by between 4.4 and 10.0 m/yr. There has been more extensive modelling of glacier trends: it is projected that one third of all glaciers in the extended HKH region will be lost by 2100 even if the warming is limited to 1.5 °C (with over half of that loss in the Eastern Himalaya region), while RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 are likely to lead to the losses of 50% and >67% of the region's glaciers over the same timeframe.

Glacier melt is projected to accelerate regional river flows until the amount of meltwater peaks around 2060, going into an irreversible decline afterwards. Since precipitation will continue to increase even as the glacier meltwater contribution declines, annual river flows are only expected to diminish in the western basins where contribution from the monsoon is low: however, irrigation and hydropower generation would still have to adjust to greater interannual variability and lower pre-monsoon flows in all of the region's rivers.

Future development and adaptation
A range of adaptation efforts are already undertaken across the HKH region: however, they suffer from underinvestment and insufficient coordination between the various state, institutional and other non-state efforts, and need to be "urgently" strengthened in order to be commensurate with the challenges ahead.

The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment outlined three main "storylines" for the region between now and 2080: "business-as-usual" (or "muddling through"), with no significant change from the current trends and development/adaptation initiatives proceeding as they do now; "downhill", where the intensity of global climate change is high, local initiatives fail and regional cooperation breaks down; and "prosperous".

Where extensive cooperation allows region's communities to weather "moderate" climate change and increase their living standards while also preserving the region's biodiversity. In addition, it described two alternate pathways through which the "prosperous" future can be achieved: the first focuses on top-down, large-scale development and the latter describes a bottom-up, decentralized alternative.

Ethnography
Pre-Islamic populations of the Hindu Kush included Shins, Yeshkuns, Chiliss, Neemchas Koli, Palus, Gaware, and Krammins.

title: Hindu Kush