John Woo
John Woo is a director, born 1946.
A decade of Hong Kong comedies and kung fu pictures came before the style everyone copied. Born in Guangzhou, John Woo turns up in the catalog as an actor in The Young Dragons in 1974 and Hand of Death in 1976, and as a director on The Dragon Tamers, Money Crazy, Last Hurrah for Chivalry, Laughing Times and To Hell with the Devil. None of that is what he is famous for, and all of it is why the famous work is so technically assured.
Then the heroic bloodshed films, and a grammar action cinema has been borrowing ever since: choreographed gunfights staged like dance, Mexican standoffs, slow motion, and open allusions to wuxia, film noir and the Western. He has taken a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editing, along with a Golden Horse, an Asia Pacific Screen Award and a Saturn.
Hollywood bought the style and mostly diluted it. Hard Target in 1993, Broken Arrow in 1996, Face/Off in 1997 and Mission: Impossible II in 2000 are the good half; Windtalkers and Paycheck are the point where the studio system had clearly won. Face/Off is the one where the operatic silliness and the American budget met on equal terms.
He went home and directed Red Cliff and Red Cliff II, two enormous historical war films, then The Crossing, Manhunt, Silent Night, and in 2024 a remake of his own The Killer. He also turns up on screen from time to time, usually as a man named Wu.
Movies (54)
- Face/Off (1997)
- Hard Boiled (1992)
- Hard Boiled (1992)
- Mission: Impossible II (2000)
- A Better Tomorrow (1986)
- A Better Tomorrow (1986)
- Broken Arrow (1996)
- The Killer (2024)
- The Killer (1989)
- Hard Target (1993)
- Windtalkers (2002)
- Twin Dragons (1992)
- Once a Thief (1991)
- Once a Thief (1991)
- Paycheck (2003)
- Red Cliff (2008)
- Bullet in the Head (1990)
- Silent Night (2023)
- Beginning of the Great Revival (2011)
- Red Cliff II (2009)
- A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
- Reign of Assassins (2010)
- Hand of Death (1976)
- Hand of Death (1976)
- Just Heroes (1989)
- Manhunt (2017)
- Heroes Shed No Tears (1984)
- The Crossing I (2014)
- I Love Maria (1988)
- The Crossing II (2015)
TV (4)
Where to start with John Woo
The Killer, made in 1989, is the film to see first. It is the purest statement of the style, it is unembarrassed about its own melodrama, and everything Hollywood later imitated is already fully formed in it.
Follow it with Hard Boiled, which has the most sustained action filmmaking of his career and where Woo himself appears on screen as Mr. Woo. A Better Tomorrow is where the heroic bloodshed cycle begins, and he shows up in that one as Inspector Wu. Bullet in the Head is the darkest and least fun thing he has made, which is why critics keep returning to it.
For the American period, Face/Off is the only one where the excess is a feature rather than a compromise. Hard Target is enjoyable, Mission: Impossible II is a stunt reel. Red Cliff is the late-career epic and much better than its reputation outside Asia, and The Killer from 2024 is for comparison only.