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John Woo

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John Woo (Chinese name: Wu Yusen 吳宇森 in pinyin: Wu2 Yu3sen1, in Gwohngdongwa pengyam: Ng4 Yue5-sam1) (b. May 1, 1946) is a Chinese film director known especially for the ballet-like violence in his movies.

John Woo was born in 1946 in Guanzhou, China to Christian parents. Faced with persecution from the Cultural Revolution, his family relocated to Hong Kong when he was five-years-old. During this time, the Woo family faced a hard life in the slums since his father had tuberculosis and could not work. In 1953, the family was made homeless when their house was burned to the ground in a brush fire. It was only thanks to periodical donations from Christian charities that Woo and his family found themselves another home. Unfortunately, by this time, a wave of crime and violence was beginning to infest Hong Kong's housing projects. One of Woo's most vivid childhood memories was of seeing a man being killed on his front steps.

In order to escape his dismay surroundings, Woo would retreat to the local theater. It was through musicals like the Wizard of Oz - a film that still stands as his all-time favorite - that the young Woo came to realize that the world was not just filled with violence and suffering; it could be beautiful and happy as well.

Later on, with the support of the local church, John Woo received the chance to go to school. Immensely grateful, he studied with the goal of pursuing his ambition: becoming a Christian minister. The turning point in young Woo's life came when his school ran a competition to design a poster for Easter Sunday. Filled with excited zeal, Woo worked hard at painting his masterpiece. When it was unveiled, Woo's teachers were stunned: the poster depicted a bleeding Jesus Christ wearing a grisly crown of thorns. When questioned, the young Woo innocently replied: "His pain has to be seen to be understood." It was clear from that moment on that the life of the ministry was much too restrictive for the free-spirited young man.

With the doors of religion closed to him, Woo hooked up a group of fellow students who shared a passion for film. They would screen European arthouse films, discuss what they had seen, and eventually, they began to make their own films.

In 1969, when he was 23, Woo got a job as a script supervisor at Cathay Studios. In 1971, he became assistant director in the famous Shaw Studios, where the famous Chang Cheh took him under his wing. Woo directed his first film in 1973 called "The Young Dragons". Choreographed by the future Jackie Chan, "The Young Dragons" was a kung-fu actioner that featured dynamic camera-work and enormously elaborate action scenes. On the strength of this first effort, Woo moved onto Golden Harvest where he directed more martial arts films. He later became a comedy director with the success of "The Pilferer's Progress", a comedy that starred Hong Kong comedian Ricky Hui.

By the mid-1980s, Woo suffered a burnout. His films were failures at the box office and he retreated to Taiwan in exile. John Woo - once called the new comedy king of Hong Kong - seemed to be on the way out. It was then that director/producer Tsui Hark provided the funding for Woo to helm a longtime pet project called 'A Better Tomorrow'.

The story of two brothers - one a cop and another a criminal - 'A Better Tomorrow' became a sensational blockbuster and a staggering phenomenon. The film singularly redefined Hong Kong action cinema with its emotional drama, slow-motion gunbattles and gritty atmosphere. The film's trenchcoat/sunglasses fashion sense and art of using a gun in each hand was destined to be endlessly imitated by Hollywood filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and the Wachowski Brothers.

Together with leading man Chow Yun Fat, John Woo would several more 'Heroic Bloodshed' films in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His violent gangster thrillers typically focused on men who were steadfast in their honor and friendship, even though such values forced them to become outcasts in a rapidly-changing world that was more concerned with money and progress. In this respect, Woo's characters were modern-day knights who used guns instead of swords.

The most famous of these movies would be 'The Killer', which brought Woo international recognition. Often called the best Hong Kong movie ever made, 'The Killer' was the ultimate in sentimental action-pulp filmmaking with its tragic characters, masterful action sequences, passionate acting and beautiful cinematography. Widely praised by critics and adored by viewers, its status as the 'perfect action film' was cemented. With 'The Killer' becoming the first Asian film since Bruce Lee's 'Enter The Dragon' to be released in America, Woo's trademark Christian symbolism, doves and Mexican stand-offs became legendary.

It was only a matter of time before Hollywood took notice. By this time, John Woo had many American admirers, including the likes of Martin Scorsese, Sam Raimi - who compared Woo's mastery of action to Hitchcock's mastery of suspense - and Quentin Tarantino, who rebuffed a studio executive who said that John Woo had a talent in directing action by saying "Sure, and Michelangelo can paint ceilings!"

Enormously impressed with his films, American executives green-lighted a contract for Woo to come work in America. With the 1997 handover of Hong Kong fast approaching, Woo decided that it was indeed time to leave.

John Woo's last gift to Hong Kong was the film 'Hard Boiled'. Infinitely darker than his previous films, it featured a Hollywood-like spectacle in its second half with policemen and criminals waging war inside a hospital - while helpless patients are caught in the crossfire. The film climaxes with supercop Chow Yun Fat singing a lullaby to a baby while gunning down incoming gangsters. It is a touching yet harrowing final message from Woo who urges Hong Kong to safeguard and educate its young people in the face of uncertain rule from Mainland China.

In 1993, John Woo found himself in a new land with a new culture. He was commissioned by Universal Studios to direct the Jean-Claude Van Damme film 'Hard Target'. What came out of it was quite possibly the most scandal-ridden Hollywood event in recent memory. While Woo was used to creative freedom in Hong Kong, he was forced to deal with an unfairly compressed production schedule. He also faced studio-imposed restrictions such as how many people could be killed in each scene, how many bullets Van Damme could pump into somebody, how Van Damme could behave and so on. When initial cuts failed to yield an "R" rated film, the studio rudely took the film from Woo's hands and pared it down themselves in order to produce a cut that was 'suitable for American audiences'.

It would be three long years before Woo made another American directorial attempt. Starring John Travalto and Christian Slater, 'Broken Arrow' was a frantic chase-picture with a bigger budget. Unfortunately, Woo once again found himself hampered by studio inteferrence. He clashed fiercely with editors who did not seem to understand the aesthetics of his filming style. What resulted was a deeply disappointing film that lacked Woo's trademark style. Fortunately, 'Broken Arrow' managed to take in a reasonable profit at the box-office and paved the way for John Woo to tackle his next project: 'Face/Off'.

Still smarting from his bitter experiences, Woo cautiously rejected the script for 'Face/Off' several times until it was rewritten to suit him. With Paramount Studios offering him significantly more freedom this time around, Woo set out to craft a complex story of two enemies - a law enforcement agent played by John Travolta and a terrorist played by Nicolas Cage - who embark on a fantastical surgical procedure that allows them to switch faces. Trapped in each other's identities, they play a cat-and-mouse game that allowed Woo to do what he did best: emotional characterization and elaborate action. 'Face/Off' opened in 1997 to wide-acclaim from critics and performed enormously well at the box office, grossing over $100 million in the United States alone. 'Face/Off' was the perfect American vehicle for Woo, a feat that has not been repeated since. Nowhere is this more clear than in an climatic apartment shootout. As bullets fly and people die, a wide-eyed child stares in wonder at the slow-motion carnage unfolding around him while listening to a headset playing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'. It is Woo paying fairy-tale homage to 'The Wizard of Oz'.

At long last, John Woo became the first Asian director to hit mainstream, paving the way for other Asian filmmakers to follow in his footsteps.

At the time of writing, John Woo has made three additional Hollywood films: 'Mission: Impossible II', 'Windtalkers' and 'Paycheck'. While 'Mission: Impossible II' was a huge hit in 2000, 'Windtalkers' and 'Paycheck' have been box office duds that were lambasted by critics. It is unclear whether Woo will be able to bounce back from such disasterous failures. While he may never again reach the dizzying heights of his Hong Kong halcyon days, he still has a forminable legacy as the most imitated action autuer of the last twenty years.



When asked about the doves that keep appearing in his films, Woo said:

"I love doves. I am a Christian. Doves represent the purity of love, beauty. They're spiritual. Also the dove is a messenger between people and God. When I was in high school and I used to draw posters for the church, I would draw a picture of a dove. When I shot The Killer, these two men, the killer and the cop, they work in different ways, but their souls are pure, because they do the right thing. In the church scene, I wanted to bring them together. I wanted to use a metaphor of the heart. I came up with doves - they're white. When the men die, I cut to the dove flying-it's the soul, rescued and safe, and also pure of heart. So the dove became one of my habits: I used it in Hard-boiled, Face/Off, and in Mission: Impossible II, at the end of the movie."


Filmography

See also: Cinema of China

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