For anyone in the mood for a night in with an explosive, brutal and expertly choreographed action flick, Gareth Evans’ Havoc has landed on Netflix at the perfect moment.
Starring Tom Hardy as a hard bitten cop navigating a world of crime and corruption, it’s an action spectacular that owes a debt to the Hong Kong action cinema of John Woo and Johnny To, as well as the US crime thrillers of William Friedkin and Michael Mann.
In Evans’ trademark style, it’s a riot of furious violence that throws guns, knives and just about anything else that comes to hand into the mix – even a washing machine at one point.
The soundtrack throws up some curveballs, too. Expect everything from Cantonese hip hop to Bing Crosby yuletide classics to some back-to-back club bangers from cool-kid French DJ, Gesaffelstein. There’s even a deep cut John Woo aural Easter egg for anyone with their ears peeled.
We asked the filmmaker to talk through a few of the choices.
The Low Mays and Bakerie – The Mysterious Hiace
‘The Cantonese hip hop was all down to the music supervisors who put in front of me! I wanted something that was specific and localised [to Chinatown]. It was obviously important to have a track that set the tone for the scene, but also had moments that could work in conjunction with the tension and the pace of the scene itself.’
Bing Crosby – O Holy Night
'Initially, we were after a Nat King Cole version of Mary's Boy Child [for the ambush sequence], which is obviously more popularly done by Boney M. But because of the way it was being used in the scene, we got rejected. But Bing Crosby’s O Holy Night fits that scene like a glove now. I wanted something that would contrast to the violence on screen – and there's something very specifically Christmassy about that piece of music. To have it as the backdrop to our assassin arriving with a shotgun really amplifies the tension.’
Xiaoyun Chen – Main Shi Chi
‘We managed to get the rights to use one of the songs from A Better Tomorrow and this is an Easter egg moment – a wink to John Woo. It’s featured when Chow Yun-fat's character hides guns in plant pots in the restaurant, and in Havoc we use it in the moment after Mother has arrived in Chinatown.’
Gesaffelstein – Pursuit
‘I was always keen to use Pursuit in the [club] sequence, but what I didn’t think would happen was that we’d end up using a number of Gesaffelstein songs across that whole scene. If you were to look at it purely from the perspective of “is that the playlist of the nightclub?”, it feels a bit odd that they would play five tracks in a row with the same artist. But every single track we dropped in as a needle drop completely complemented the choreography and the action.’
Gesaffelstein – Destinations
Gesaffelstein – Obsession
Gesaffelstein – OPR
Gesaffelstein – Hate Or Glory
The Choir of Kings College London – O Frondens Virga
When is Havoc on Netflix?
The movie launches on the streamer worldwide on Friday, April 25.
Havoc’s filming locations: Gareth Evans on how he built his violent American metropolis... in Wales.
The 101 greatest soundtracks in cinema history.