Heroes Shed No Tears

A group of Chinese mercenaries is hired by the Thai government to seize a powerful drug lord operating out of the Golden Triangle. The mission succeeds, but getting out proves far harder than getting in: the captured man's organization gives chase, and a Thai officer with his own grievance joins the hunt. Outnumbered and losing men, the mercenaries find their escape route narrowing as their pursuers close in.

John Woo directed, wrote the screenplay and produced this Hong Kong action drama, released in late 1984. It is the second of the twenty-two films he has directed in chronological order, arriving between Hand of Death in 1976 and A Better Tomorrow in 1986, the latter marking a decisive turn in his career. Eddy Ko leads the cast as Chan Chung, with Lam Ching-Ying as a Vietnamese colonel, Ma Yingchun, Philippe Loffredo and Cécile Le Bailly among the mercenaries and civilians caught up in the retreat.

Audience response has been moderate rather than enthusiastic: on IMDb the film holds a 6.3 rating from around 1,700 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.4 from roughly 82 votes. The small vote counts indicate a niche following outside the director's better-known work, while the slightly higher TMDB figure suggests those who seek the film out tend to rate it a little more warmly than the broader IMDb pool.