It’s pure, maximalist filmmaking in the hands of a master who can put it all out there within the right emotional context to prevent it all from falling apart.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Barry Hertz
At times, it approaches self-parody, but that’s just Woo having some much-needed fun.
It’s hard not to smile when John Woo is having this much fun, or to care about the future when the old-fashioned has this much style.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
It's the kind of cartoonish film where, no matter what the odds and how many bullets are flying at our heroes, they never get seriously injured.
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
With every overblown character introduction and goofy twist, it announces itself as intentionally cheesy guilty pleasure. With Woo, one expects a higher, more transcendent grade of cheese.
However much fun the film’s high points may afford, there is also something faintly depressing about seeing a once-inventive filmmaker plunder his own legacy for easy props.
Screen International by Jonathan Romney
Younger fans of the modern actioner may find Manhunt a little old-school, especially in its unabashed romantic heart and flag-waving for the square-jawed good guys. But it’s breezy, handsomely mounted fun that shows that Woo has lost neither his mojo nor his sense of poetry.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
This film offers something that is never in sufficiently plentiful supply: fun.
RogerEbert.com by Simon Abrams
For those who have understandably not seen Takakura's original film due to international distribution issues: think "The Fugitive," only this time, Tommy Lee Jones' gruff cop is replaced by a more sympathetic hot-shot detective.
Manhunt is well aware of Hong Kong movie history and the visual language of international action movies. But it also approaches satire in its ridiculous mining of tropes and its conscious visual excesses.