From: wildman@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Worsley)
Subject: John Woo
Reply-To: eprice@sql.sybase.com
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 08:07:20 GMT

GOREZONE #23 has a brief but interesting article on John Woo.  If you
buy the mag you also get a picture of Woo with an amusing caption plus
some stills (obviously chosen with GZ's target audience in mind...).
Here's the text of it for your enjoyment:

John Woo: Action-Oriented
By Caroline Vie'

Over the last year or so, the genre cinema of Hong Kong has been
snaring an increasing amount of notice in the United States.  As the
movies have achieved greater prominence in this country, the
filmmakers behind them have come into the limelight, and John Woo is
invariably at the top of the list.  He's not only one of the best
Asian directors, but also one of the most talented and creative
movie-makers in the world--one who could easily compete with the best
US action specialists.

In person, John Woo doesn't look like the kind of man who would make
the movies he does.  It's hard to believe that this small, soft-spoken
fellow is the director of such gory and violent films as THE KILLER or
BULLET IN THE HEAD.  Born in South China in 1948, Woo moved with his
family to Hong Kong, attended college there and joined a student drama
troupe in 1967.  "I started to make experimental 8mm short movies," he
explains, "which gave me a good opportunity to learn a lot about movie
techniques and filmmaking.  I'm sorry to say that you'll never be able
to see them, because they were stolen during a festival."

In 1971, Woo began to work for Golden Harvest, the company which
discovered Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan and--much later--brought the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the screen.  He became an assistant to
famous kung-fu film director Zhang Che.  "He was chain-directing,"
admits Woo, "but he taught me many things about movies."  This
experience led fairly quickly to Woo's first opportunity to direct a
feature.  "It was called YOUNG DRAGONS," he recalls, "and Golden
Harvest liked it so much that they ended up signing me as a director
with a three-year contract.  I was very lucky to start directing at
only 26, because it was rare for anyone under 40 to be able to do so."

Very soon, Woo was working with one the company's biggest stars:
comedian Michael Hui, who is considered the very top as far as
Cantonese comedy is concerned.  "I love this kind of cartoonlike
slapstick," Woo declares, "and Michael Hui is one of the best Hong
Kong actors.  I'd be delighted to direct a movie for him again."  Woo's
early work was not confined to comedies, though.  Among his other
films of that time are an adaptation of a Cantonese opera called
PRINCESS CHANG PING, a martial arts movie with Jackie Chan (the billed
as Chen Yuan-Long) titled COUNTDOWN TO KUNG FU in America and the
violent war epic HEROES SHED NO TEARS.

After leaving Golden Harvest in 1981, Woo switched to the Cinema City
production house, where he made three more comedies.  In 1986, he
found his true home: Film Workshop, producer/director Tsui Hark's
studio.  Hark was looking for something other than immediate profit,
and was putting money in movies that mixed commercial values with
strong artistic qualities.  He provided Woo the opportunity to direct
a film he had wanted to make for years: A BETTER TOMORROW, the tragic
story of two brothers--one a cop, the other a criminal--caught up in
the workings of the mob.  This superb piece of cinema features Woo's
favorite ingredients: spectacular gunfights, extensive use of
slow-motion, graphic violence and melodrama.  "I was afraid it was not
going to work commercially," the director admits.  "The audience was
not supposed to care for violence and serious stories about life and
death."

He shouldn't have worried.  A BETTER TOMORROW became a huge success in
Asia, grossing the equivalent of $4.5 million (excellent numbers for a
Hong Kong film) and launching actor Chow Yun Fat as a superstar, even
though he plays a supporting character in the movie.  "When I decided
to hire Chow Yun Fat, my producer didn't want to hear about him," Woo
reveals.  "He was considered a complete box-office disaster, because
all his previous movies were flops.  I didn't know him personally at
the time, but I loved his work in Ann Hui's THE STORY OF WOO VIET.  I
had to fight to get him, and A BETTER TOMORROW made him a star.
Later, for THE KILLER, I wrote the lead role especially for him."

A BETTER TOMORROW was such a success that many Asian teenagers even
took Yun Fat's character as a role model, wearing windbreakers and
sunglasses and chewing matchsticks as Yun Fat does in the movie.  The
time was certainly right for A BETTER TOMORROW 2, but there was a
small problem: The gangster played by Yun Fat had been blown away at
the end of the first movie.  But a solution was soon arrived at--the
killer's twin brother was introduced, fighting for dear life against a
new gang of mobsters.  Woo isn't especially anxious to talk about the
sequel, and has even been quoted as saying that it was "the worst film
ever made."

After this disappointing piece, however, came THE KILLER, an
action-melodrama once again starring Yun Fat, this time as a contract
killer trying to go straight after accidentally blinding a lovely
singer during a hit.  "The film is a tribute to French director
Jean-Pierre Melville, whom I've been admiring for years,"  explains
Woo.  "In the '60s, his films were very popular in Hong Kong, and I
thought a lot about them while writing the script."  The movie was not
only a huge hit in Asia, but was also the first of Woo's action films
to be theatrically released in America.  Director Walter Hill is
currently planning to direct a remake, starring Richard Gere and
Denzel Washington.  "I'm very happy and surprised at the strong
reaction of American audiences to THE KILLER," Woo says.  "I didn't
expect them to like it.  They're partial to my films because they're
very close to what that audience is used to seeing."

"My movies are made for worldwide audiences, and I'm working with
universal subjects," Woo says.  "Most Hong Kong films are made to be
distributed only in Asia.  Americans can't always relate to them,
because they have a hard time getting involved in a picture if the
subject is not close to what they're interested in."  Even though the
movie was very well received in America, Woo and his partner Terence
Chang had to fight the MPAA decision to give it an X rating because of
its numerous bloody gunfights.  "We were very surprised, because we
don't have this kind of problem in Hong Kong, " says Chang.  "We think
this rating was unfair."

To this day, THE KILLER is the last Woo film to be produced by Tsui
Hark.  Looking for more freedom, Woo produced BULLET IN THE HEAD
himself.  For once, actor Chow Yun Fat was not involved in this story
of friendship and betrayal, about three young men who are obliged to
leave Hong Kong for Vietnam after one of them commits a murder.  Tony
Leung, pop star Jackie Cheung and Wiase Lee play the best buddies, who
are finally parted by greed before an outlandish final scene in which
Leung and Lee try to kill each other in a pseudo-medieval joust with
guns and cars.

BULLET IN THE HEAD is certainly the most mature of Woo's movies to
date.  This may be why the film was a relative failure in Asia:
Moviegoers were evidently not ready for its unfliching brutality and
violence.  One sequence, for example, involves the heroes being
captured by the Viet Cong, who think they're spies and try to have
them execute each other!  This DEER HUNTER-inspired scene came across
so intensely that people could be heard gasping in the cinema.  "The
movie was not a reaction against American Vietnam films," says Woo,
"but to the incident which happened in Tianenmen Square on June 4,
1989.  I was so horrified that I made this film as a symbolization of
a future Hong Kong after 1997."

Following BULLET IN THE HEAD, Woo and Terence Chang founded Milestone,
their own company, to give them total control over their films.  The
outfit's first production, ONCE A THIEF, is a light comedy once again
starring Chow Yun Fat and featuring Leslie Cheung (best known as the
scholar in the first two CHINESE GHOST STORY films).  Partly shot in
Paris, the film follows the adventures of three sympathetic burglars
and offers plenty of quick-paced action scenes.  Woo insists that his
making ONCE A THIEF doesn't mean he's leaving violent thrillers
behind.

"ONCE A THIEF was conceived to open for Chinese New Year," he
explains.  "At this time of the year, families are going to the
movies, and we had to be sure that the film would get the equivalent
of a PG rating.  There's a lot of action in the movie, but the
humorous touch makes these scenes less violent.  I wanted to give the
audience an optimistic view for a change, to tell them that life is
not so sad after all."

Whether comic or intense, all of Woo's films spring from a very
precise idea of what he wants to see on screen.  "I never use a
storyboard," he reveals.  "All the scenes are in my head.  My
conception of filmmaking is quite different from that of the other
Hong Kong directors, who still work shot by shot without doing a
master.  I work the American way, which means having several cameras
rolling at the same time, shooting the scene from different angles.
It helps the actors a great deal, because they are more spontaneous
when they can play the entire scene without interruption."  Woo also
edits all of his movies--with the recent exception of ONCE A THIEF,
which had to be cut as it was filmed to complete it in time for the
Chinese holday.  "Editing is a very important part of filmmaking," Woo
insists.  "Sometimes I change a scene entirely in the editing room."

The director's most recent piece, a return to his more violent style,
is HARD-BOILED, which opened in Hong Kong this part spring.  "The idea
for this film came to me during the Gulf War," says Woo, "because I
heard a lot about arms smuggling at the time.  The plot is centered on
a Dirty Harry-like cop, played by Chow Yun Fat, fighting against a
psychopathic hit man played by Tony Leung."  Even though Woo was
obliged to lighten Leung's character--turning him into an undercover
cop posing as a killer to spy on the smugglers--to preserve the star's
image, the movie remains very violent and action-packed.  "This film
will be much more optimistic than THE KILLER or BULLET IN THE HEAD,"
Woo allows.  "Here, innocence and justice will survive."

Once HARD-BOILED's editing was completed, Woo was scheduled to travel
to New Orleans to begin work on his first American film, the Univeral
Pictures production HARD TARGET.  The action thriller toplines martial
arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme and is produced by Sam Raimi, with
Chang also on board as co-producer.  The director describes the movie
as "quite different from Van Damme's previous films."  One can only
hope that working with a major American company won't result in Woo's
losing his personal touch, and that he won't be obliged to make too
many concessions.  Though he's glad to be able to work in the States,
Woo has no desire to move there permanently before 1997.

"I'd love to be able to do movies all around the world," he says.
"And I do want to leave Hong Kong after 1997, because I know that the
new government won't allow me any freedom of creation.  I don't
approve of totalitarianism, and I know people like me will be crushed
by the new regime.  I don't have any precise plans yet, but I wouldn't
mind living in LA, Canada or Europe."

But wherever he ends up relocating, it's certain that his future
projects will continue the pattern of intense, often downbeat drama
that has marked his work so far.  "Most of my films match the mood I'm
in when I write them," he explains.  "I'm not an optimist by
nature--as people may have figured out from my previous movies."

--
Ed (not Tim), eprice@sql.sybase.com (not wildman@..)