‘Most things would have killed him’: the grisly science behind Die Hard

Die Hard is now 35, just a couple of years older than Bruce Willis was when he made it. As we all know, it holds up like gangbusters, especially at Yuletide, when it becomes a curiously cosy watch – well, insofar as that’s possible, with the necks of goons being snapped by John McClane, and the brains of a Japanese businessman blown out all over an office door by Hans Gruber.