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00:00:01Once you start to understand sort of the world of John Woo, nobody comes close to
00:00:06making the movies that he makes, made and still makes.
00:00:09John Woo movies inspire me, like seeing something down and grounded and very gritty.
00:00:15You know, it feels like, it feels so real, it feels like a documentary, a stylistic
00:00:20documentary style, where you feel like you can be there, you smell it, you taste it.
00:00:26He completely redefined not just Hong Kong action cinema, but action cinema everywhere
00:00:31around the world.
00:00:31The Better Tomorrow films, The Killer, Hard Boiled, everything he did.
00:01:07John Woo kind of started as an assistant director to the martial arts director, Jiang Che, working
00:01:17on, I guess, films that were, in a lot of ways, similar to the themes that sort of developed
00:01:23in his later cinema, in his kind of later action cinema, with sort of the gangsters.
00:01:30And Jiang Che's kind of known for his kind of concern with sort of heroic martial arts masculinity,
00:01:36with kind of sacrifice and bloodshed in his heroes.
00:01:40And also sort of the themes of, I guess, kind of brotherhood, the sort of the, the bonding
00:01:45between heroes.
00:01:47And John Woo very much kind of saw himself as kind of being very much, if you like, a
00:01:51sort of disciple of Jiang Che.
00:01:53Jiang Che was very much his, his mentor in a lot of ways.
00:01:56And if you look back at his early films through the 70s, he was working in Kung Fu, he was
00:02:00working
00:02:01in martial arts cinema during the 1970s as well.
00:02:03Like films like Last Hurrah for Chivalry, for example.
00:02:06And then even into the early 1980s, he was doing quite an interesting mix of films, which
00:02:11you could watch and you might not think this is a John Woo film.
00:02:14Something like To Hell with the Devil, for example.
00:02:16Very funny, early Hong Kong sort of spooky comedy type of film, which actually also, I
00:02:21think, foreshadows some of his Christian themes later.
00:02:23But there's, it's not really until he, he gets to his, you know, his heroic, heroic
00:02:30bloodshed films, his bullet ballet films from 1986.
00:02:33That's what we associate John Woo with doing.
00:02:36But at the same time, he has a much more varied, I think, enriched career than you actually associate
00:02:42him with.
00:02:55You know, after Bruce Lee died, you know, and the whole Hong Kong film prisoner, they are all
00:03:02looking for some new material.
00:03:05You know, they want to have, they all wanted to make a big change.
00:03:11You know, since Bruce Lee got so, so much of great impact and so much success for the whole
00:03:21business.
00:03:21And so they want us to make a change, you know, and before Bruce Lee, the Hong Kong movie was,
00:03:31wasn't that great.
00:03:33You know, everything had, you know, so old-fashioned and poor, you know, and, you know, it seems like
00:03:45only one single film, you know, in Hong Kong, but, you know, 1980, you know, we can, all of a
00:03:54sudden,
00:03:54we can develop it.
00:03:57It's a huge change.
00:04:00So, fortunately, we have a very, very open, you know, financial, you know, they, they love
00:04:08movies, they love movies, and then they like to support any new idea.
00:04:13So, you know, Hong Kong, the whole Hong Kong film business, they all wanted to try something
00:04:23new, anything new, you know.
00:04:26So, all of a sudden, you know, there were all kinds of movies, you know, the movies had been
00:04:33made, you know, like the police story, you know, no matter the police story or gangster or
00:04:40love story or art film, and the audience really love to see a change.
00:04:47So, we are so lucky, you know, to, besides, we have got a very good financier, you know,
00:04:59for their support, and by the meantime, we have no fear.
00:05:06We have no fear to do anything we wanted to do, anything we like, you know.
00:05:15So, like, I always dreaming to make a movie in a restaurant way, you know, not like a traditional
00:05:24Hong Kong film, you know.
00:05:25The traditional Hong Kong film is very simple, you know, right.
00:05:29They short without sound, and then they just short what they need, you know.
00:05:35So, but I like to use the Western system, you know, to, and the technique to shoot the movies.
00:05:47And everything was so simple.
00:05:50If we have an idea, and then we just go to the financier, and then they only ask,
00:05:59what do you want to shoot?
00:06:00And I say, oh, I want to shoot the story about a cop with a killer.
00:06:06Okay, what's the cash?
00:06:08So, in fact, oh, and then how much?
00:06:13About 30 million dollars.
00:06:15Okay, go ahead.
00:06:17Do it.
00:06:33One of the ways that you can understand his latest cinema is kind of taking those sort of themes of
00:06:38martial arts heroism,
00:06:39which are drawn from sort of a whole sort of long literature of sort of martial arts stories in Chinese
00:06:50culture,
00:06:51around the kind of the figure of the wuxia, the sort of the martial hero.
00:06:56It's sometimes translated as a sort of the knight-errant of Chinese cinema, if you like,
00:07:01with this kind of code of honor and brotherhood and righteousness,
00:07:05often very sort of anarchic, rebellious, and violent characters in Chinese history,
00:07:10but also sort of known for their sort of their honesty, for fulfilling promises,
00:07:16for their brotherhood, for helping out other sorts of people in distress,
00:07:20and taking things into their own hands in a sort of very positive way as well.
00:07:26So, one of the ways of sort of understanding the Zhongwu cinema is kind of taking these sort of historical
00:07:31themes
00:07:32that were kind of there within the martial arts cinema of the early 70s,
00:07:36where he was kind of starting out and then translating them into the contemporary world of Hong Kong,
00:07:44and sort of doing a sort of a genre sort of jump between the sort of the martial arts cinema
00:07:49and kind of the gangster film, if you like.
00:07:52And then sort of being able to sort of merge in influences from Hollywood,
00:07:57things like The Godfather, from French cinema, Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samurai,
00:08:01I think is a very kind of key sort of touch point within that.
00:08:05And also, of course, kind of Japanese gangster films as well.
00:08:08And he's very influenced by kind of people like Sam Peckinpah and the slow motion in that.
00:08:12It's essentially The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in terms of westerns,
00:08:20and then maybe The Getaway in terms of modern-day crime.
00:08:24And technically, if you look at the way they both shoot action scenes,
00:08:31the use of multiple cameras and little moments of slow motion
00:08:36and lots of men striding towards camera with corpses falling around,
00:08:42that's very much a Peckinpah style.
00:08:47So, in a sense, he's sort of taking these very specifically Hong Kong martial arts traditions
00:08:52and then sort of reimagining them and perhaps reimagining them
00:08:56at a sort of a time of kind of complicated crisis in Hong Kong
00:09:00as something that addresses the sort of the time and place and setting
00:09:06of his own life and of the contemporary world.
00:09:31I think one of the sort of things that's very important in A Better Tomorrow
00:09:37is Chow Yun-Fat's kind of image in the film.
00:09:40So there's a very particular version of kind of masculinity that's involved with it.
00:09:45And Chow Yun-Fat, I mean, he's also someone who's, he'd made it very big in television
00:09:51and was also kind of struggling to break into sort of successful cinematic roles.
00:09:56And I think John Woo had sort of very much seen a kind of a, what we call it,
00:10:03a kind of an analogue for himself in Chow Yun-Fat as a kind of a bit of an underdog.
00:10:07For him, it is being able to layer that sensitivity and that emotion on top of that machismo,
00:10:15which is why Chow Yun-Fat is so amazing at having all of those layers and elements.
00:10:21You know, he's all of that all at once. He is this Cary Grant of it all, right?
00:10:25But he is also, you know, a Bronson, a Stallone, you name it.
00:10:32Like, he is tough and cool, but he's certainly this romantic gentleman as well.
00:10:39He's got it all.
00:10:40Chow Yun-Fat is one of the most iconic actors in the history of Asian cinema, I would say.
00:10:46And rising to stardom in the 1980s, he became a definite cultural icon
00:10:51and the important face of Hong Kong's golden age of action films.
00:10:55His performances in A Better Tomorrow turned him into a cultural phenomenon.
00:11:00So he was cool and charismatic and emotionally layered.
00:11:05The trench coat and sunglasses and pistols become instantly iconic
00:11:09and being remembered by the audience.
00:11:25When Jun-Wu started making action cinema with A Better Tomorrow in 1986,
00:11:31he very much kind of sparked off a new sort of craze for a new kind of gangster film in
00:11:36Hong Kong.
00:11:37But a lot of the sort of the people that sort of came after him
00:11:40tended to make very kind of gritty, realistic kind of gangster films.
00:11:45Whereas I think one of the things that sort of famously marks out John Woo's films as being special
00:11:50and being different is this kind of element of fantasy,
00:11:53something that's kind of ecstatic in the violence.
00:11:57It sort of enters into a sort of a sacred ritual, magical sort of aestheticized sort of space.
00:12:05So there's this kind of moment of sort of violence, but also this kind of transcendence of kind of violence,
00:12:11which I guess in some senses he's getting from, you know, what sort of fascinated him about the cinema
00:12:17as a sort of a space as a child.
00:12:19And then also the sort of, I guess, very sort of, in a lot of ways also kind of sacred
00:12:24violence
00:12:25within the films of his mentor, Jang Che.
00:12:45So we had A Better Tomorrow and A Better Tomorrow 2, fantastic films. I love them.
00:12:49But I think with The Killer, he took everything he did in those films
00:12:52and he notched it up another couple of levels.
00:12:54He took Chow Yun-Fat in particular and he gave him this completely iconic classic role for him.
00:13:01Everything about it revolves around the screen persona which Chow Yun-Fat had been developing
00:13:05slowly but surely throughout the 1980s.
00:13:08He upped the bloody brotherhood in it.
00:13:11He made everything about the relationship between, the classic between like the cop and the killer,
00:13:15and the killer has the heart and soul and everything.
00:13:17But what he gives us with The Killer, the action has increased.
00:13:20When we have A Better Tomorrow, we have the relationships,
00:13:22but they are more tied towards family as such, which is great.
00:13:25It works very well as they feel a bit more like a soap opera,
00:13:29and I don't mean that in a bad way.
00:13:30But with The Killer, we have this completely different take of cops and robbers,
00:13:34if you want to put it like this, technically who should be the bad guy,
00:13:37the assassin and the cop chasing him.
00:13:39And then we see everything that brings them together throughout the film
00:13:42and this completely believable and actually quite moving relationship between them,
00:13:46as well as seeing Chow Yun-Fat's motivations for why he's doing everything,
00:13:50to get the operation for the site to help the girl he's injured.
00:13:54And so there's so much going on in The Killer.
00:13:57It's an emotional film.
00:13:58It is actually a moving film as well as being incredibly thrilling
00:14:01and giving us, every film John Woo did,
00:14:03he notched up the action choreography in his Hong Kong films leading up to Hard Boiled.
00:14:07But The Killer, in a way, is a film where he most perfectly brought together,
00:14:11like the melodrama and the action side in it as well.
00:14:14And it makes The Killer one of the greatest, not just action films,
00:14:17but one of the greatest Hong Kong films.
00:14:18I don't even think so.
00:14:19I think you really are going to take a picture with me.
00:14:20I won't think you found any of any of any other.
00:14:22You won't be able to, you won't be able to do anything.
00:14:26You won't be able to.
00:14:26You won't be able to.
00:14:29Jo, you're in a corner.
00:14:30You're in a corner?
00:14:32You're in a corner.
00:14:33You're in a corner.
00:14:34You're in a corner.
00:14:35I remember this film from a long time ago,
00:14:38and when I turned by the first time before I was looking for someone,
00:14:41I want to return to the moment in time to film the scene.
00:14:46My name is Depeh商鴻, he will find me as a driver.
00:14:50At that time, I was very excited.
00:14:52I watched the movie of the英雄 movie.
00:14:58It was a sort of英雄 movie.
00:15:00It was very good to watch.
00:15:03I was very excited.
00:15:06At that time, I was really very excited.
00:15:10I saw I was very excited.
00:15:15At that time, I really didn't remember the movie.
00:15:20But I remember the first time I watched the movie,
00:15:23the first movie was like a river.
00:15:30But I really didn't remember the movie.
00:15:34How can I describe吳宇森?
00:15:36When I was working with him, I saw that
00:15:40because in the last few years,
00:15:42the film was not so much.
00:15:46It was a great time to be filmed,
00:15:49but it was a great time to watch.
00:15:49I saw that three of the movies were filmed.
00:15:51The three of the movies were filmed.
00:15:56The three of the movies were filmed.
00:15:57So I thought that they were just a big fan.
00:16:02But I was like,
00:16:02I think the movie is the only one thing.
00:16:07I was like,
00:16:08I was like,
00:16:34I think what is good about The Killer is that it's
00:16:40with very much I think defining Zhang Wu style in terms of this blends of aesthetics with
00:16:48emotional music and also very impactful scenes and then very stylized violence and also I think
00:16:58with a very interesting and from I think what we perhaps know and think now very precise and right
00:17:07decisions of who to work with and also what actors to be playing in the film
00:17:23I think
00:17:24I think
00:17:24Mr. Joe Huen發的合作亦非常愉快因為他很照顧現場的工作人員當時大家都更年輕我很記得在一間屋裡拍很多槍戰我們經常都會在等待
00:17:51看著他拍都有這種事
00:17:53And the actor of the Lee Sören was a very special actor.
00:18:00He was also a very special actor.
00:18:04And the actor of the Lee Sören was a very beautiful actor.
00:18:12He was a very good actor.
00:18:14I remember that the song of the主題曲 was he sang.
00:18:22In every day, I'm going to take care of my heart
00:18:30Every day, every night
00:18:33When I want to see myself
00:18:36I want to share with you
00:18:38That heart will disappear
00:18:40In the 1980s,
00:18:43Salia was definitely a big star in both Cantopop and Mandopop.
00:18:47I would say she actually released more Cantopop track,
00:18:50but she's from Taiwan,
00:18:52but she grew up in Canada,
00:18:54so she's Canadian as well.
00:18:55So I think she has this quite transnational type of image
00:19:00why she mostly developed her career in Hong Kong.
00:19:04So she has this very powerful voice
00:19:09which also blends with, I think, a very gentle and emotional touch
00:19:13and so I think that resonates with a lot of different audiences
00:19:20across the Chinese-speaking world.
00:19:21But at the same time, I think for her music
00:19:23that she also successfully blends Western genres such as R&B.
00:19:29So, yeah, I think those hit songs in both Cantopop and Mandopop
00:19:34kind of feature into, I think, her status as a superstar.
00:19:54Music plays a very powerful role in shaping the film's emotional landscape
00:19:59and also the stylized violence in the film.
00:20:04The film is a master class in blending action and sentimentality
00:20:09and its use of music is central to that balance.
00:20:13A standout motif in the film is the use of the solo piano music,
00:20:17mostly notable for the scene, in the scene featuring Jenny,
00:20:21who's played by Salia,
00:20:23the blind singer whose fate is tragically tangled with the hitman, Arjon.
00:20:26And the recurring piano theme, which is a little bit sad and romantic,
00:20:33became the film's core theme, which is, I think, something about redemption,
00:20:38something about sadness but love as well.
00:20:42So, I think, which kind of reminds us humanity
00:20:46and behind all of the gun scenes and also gun fight.
00:20:50So, there are also some themes when Salia sing in the piano or jazz bar.
00:20:57So, which, where that we see diegetic music being used in the film.
00:21:03So, automatically, I think music is something in the killer that elevates,
00:21:08I think, the storytelling.
00:21:10It's very good.
00:21:12I think it's very good.
00:21:14I think that the director's film is a very romantic,
00:21:20and has a fight, and the love and the feeling is very heavy.
00:21:26I think that the film is very good.
00:21:35I think that the film is very good.
00:21:35The DEPY SHOCKO
00:21:37I remember that I was not able to bring B-組 to film
00:21:45But the time was not enough time to do that
00:21:51The director of the U.S.
00:21:54The director of the U.S.
00:21:56The director of the U.S.
00:21:57asked me to help me to film
00:21:59I used camera camera
00:22:06When I brought a camera, there was a camera with me.
00:22:12After that, I watched a couple of hours.
00:22:18I was very happy because I didn't try to bring a couple of people out there.
00:22:29It was a huge shock and a huge shock.
00:22:35In the movement of the movement,
00:22:38I think the most important thing is that
00:22:42when I was going to go down the mountain,
00:22:45the most important thing was that
00:22:50the sun was just a little dark.
00:22:52I thought I was going to do this.
00:22:54I remember that there was only one hour and then there was an accident.
00:23:01We also had to go back to the car.
00:23:07We had to go back to the mountain,
00:23:12so that we could go back to the mountain.
00:23:15In that time, he chose the position that was about 10 meters tall.
00:23:25I remember that 10 meters tall is not very good.
00:23:30Then I chose the position that was about 20 meters tall.
00:23:36Then I chose the position that was about 10 meters tall.
00:23:40I remember that he was very good at the time.
00:23:46He asked me if he was not worried about the situation.
00:23:50I said that he was able to do it.
00:23:56He said that he was very good at the time.
00:23:58He said that he was very good at the time.
00:24:01I remember that at the time,
00:24:05he was very good at the time.
00:24:08He was very good at the time.
00:24:11The time was very strong.
00:24:14He could fly the plane to the plane.
00:24:18The other thing is that he was driving a car.
00:24:22He was driving away from the plane.
00:24:23He was driving away from the plane.
00:24:27I remember that he was not able to do that.
00:24:56I would really say that the killer is
00:24:59the most exemplary John Woo film.
00:25:02It's a textbook.
00:25:03If you want to learn everything about John Woo,
00:25:07like the classical John Woo, this is the film.
00:25:09It really has all the signatures, all the signs,
00:25:13all the cool things and all the enjoyable elements
00:25:16of a John Woo film.
00:25:18And it's a really interesting thing.
00:25:21For example, a lot of people could immediately come out
00:25:24with the idea that, for example,
00:25:26John Woo's obsession with religious symbolism,
00:25:30with the doves, the setting in a small chapel
00:25:34in the countryside.
00:25:35I mean, things that we would see even in his Hollywood days,
00:25:38like Face Off.
00:25:40His love of the idea of the doppelganger
00:25:44and sometimes just simply the double.
00:25:46So the idea is that on the one hand, we have the Chow Yun-fat person.
00:25:52He's a killer with the heart of gold.
00:25:54But it is also a kind of very medieval righteous figure
00:26:00who is supposed to observe his killing for money.
00:26:05But at the same time, he also knows where his boundaries are.
00:26:09And he would only do the right thing.
00:26:12He's killing for a purpose.
00:26:15He wouldn't hurt women.
00:26:16He wouldn't hurt a little girl.
00:26:19So a lot of these things are really going on.
00:26:22But at the same time, I have to say,
00:26:23he meets a detective, right?
00:26:26And the detective is totally his double.
00:26:29There's this particular scene in which this detective goes into Chow Yun-fat's flat.
00:26:35And then it's a very old 1930s style flat.
00:26:40And then he's sitting exactly on the spot
00:26:44where Chow Yun-fat was sitting just a few minutes ago.
00:26:47And you have this beautiful montage
00:26:49and also superimposition between them sitting.
00:26:53And it's such a delightfully and beautifully choreographed piece of art.
00:26:59There is a couple of things that John Woo really loves
00:27:03and sometimes are not really being talked about a lot.
00:27:07First of all, his nostalgia
00:27:10and his love of the 1950s Cantonese cinema.
00:27:15Not only are many of these locations recalling or reminding the Hong Kong spectators in the 1980s,
00:27:25the very 1950s, 1960s setting.
00:27:29I mean, including Chow Yun-fat's flat
00:27:32and also a lot of these locations, the tenement buildings, a lot of these things.
00:27:38But also I think about the plot itself with a person like Chu Gong being in the movie.
00:27:50And Chu Gong is also such a really interesting character in his short of the days,
00:27:56also Cantonese cinema days, Mandarin cinema days, and then television,
00:28:02like Asia television and also RTV days.
00:28:04And you can totally see that he has always been regarded as one of the most righteous actors in the
00:28:13industry.
00:28:14And then he plays a gangster again with a heart of gold,
00:28:20which is really, really interesting.
00:28:23It immediately brings you back to that kind of 1950s, 1960s.
00:28:28We are all workers, and we are all under oppression,
00:28:33and we are all here to work together.
00:28:35We take care of each other, no matter what the rich people are going to say.
00:28:42And I think that really carries a lot of that kind of 1950s Hong Kong cinema
00:28:49to the contemporary 1980s Hong Kong audience.
00:28:54which is this kind of thing.
00:28:58I think, during the November of the movie,
00:28:59I don't think I can deal with at all.
00:29:03Even though we are all now,
00:29:04I think it's very accurate.
00:29:07I don't care what the theme is for the movie.
00:29:11When I was in anger,
00:29:12she was only wondering when I was in the film.
00:29:14The film is really burning my heart.
00:29:15The film is a big part of the movie.
00:29:19The film is really subscribing to me.
00:29:22and he still has a lot of fun.
00:29:25When he saw the character and the character
00:29:30of the character of the character,
00:29:32the character of the character of the character of the character,
00:29:34it was really...
00:29:39I think it was really good.
00:29:55One thing we don't really see from John Woo for a lot of his films,
00:29:59and certainly not now, is politics.
00:30:02But if you look back,
00:30:03he did arguably one of the most political Hong Kong action films,
00:30:06A Bullet in the Head,
00:30:07which it's hard not to see being on some level...
00:30:10It's about Tiananmen Square.
00:30:12I don't think there's any other way to look at it.
00:30:13It's about violent change.
00:30:15It's about oppression.
00:30:16It's about friendship, everything, breaking down.
00:30:19We had a lot of Hong Kong films through the 80s
00:30:21into the early 90s,
00:30:23which were looking at friendship under oppression,
00:30:25whether it's China,
00:30:26whether it's a Japanese invasion, everything.
00:30:28And I think with A Bullet in the Head,
00:30:30what John Woo's doing...
00:30:31It's an incredibly effective film that you've watched.
00:30:35It's a bullet in the head.
00:30:36It feels like you're being punched in the gut watching that film.
00:30:39You can feel that there is a political metaphor in the film.
00:30:43There's no other way to see that film.
00:30:44And it's not something which John Woo's ever really done since then,
00:30:48which is a shame,
00:30:48because I think the different layers,
00:30:51the different levels you can watch a bullet in the head on,
00:30:53make it one of the most hard-hitting films of his career,
00:30:56but really just of Hong Kong action genre of that time.
00:30:59Of course, it does address very strongly the idea of political turmoil
00:31:06and leaving Hong Kong,
00:31:10and then the idea of addressing political violence.
00:31:14the idea is just like,
00:31:15how do you address political violence and feeling helpless,
00:31:19and what you can do within that.
00:31:22Even when the film was released,
00:31:25I remember that I saw it not quite kosher,
00:31:30because I was under 18.
00:31:31I was actually...
00:31:33I saw it in the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
00:31:36And I remember that even in the Hong Kong International Film Festival,
00:31:41in the catalogue,
00:31:42they would say that this is actually one of the first commercially released films
00:31:46that openly alluded to the 1967 riots.
00:31:53If you think about the way it starts, right,
00:31:55it starts with the 1967 riots in Hong Kong,
00:31:57whether or not you're completely familiar with the historical context as an international viewer,
00:32:01but when you're watching them,
00:32:03you'll get a sense that he's framing,
00:32:05he's shooting it in a way which I think is directly linked to Tiananmen,
00:32:08to Tiananmen Square,
00:32:09the imagery,
00:32:10the way it's used and shown to us.
00:32:13I think that's what is actually at the core of the film,
00:32:16and as we can see that as it moves through the film,
00:32:18everything relates back still to this idea of Hong Kong and its identity
00:32:23as a colonised place,
00:32:25which has gone from one coloniser to the shadow and the threat
00:32:27of this looming authoritarian oppression,
00:32:30this rule which is coming into it.
00:32:32And you could see that in a lot of Hong Kong films,
00:32:34really from the start of the 80s throughout,
00:32:36when we had the signing of the sign of the Sino-British Declaration.
00:32:39Hong Kong was a colony whose fate was being decided not by Hong Kong,
00:32:43but by negotiations by other powers.
00:32:45And so it was being passed from the British,
00:32:48you know, as a colony with everything that went with that,
00:32:50to mainland China,
00:32:52this completely different force,
00:32:54which was not likely to be particularly kind
00:32:57or was going to give it something completely different.
00:32:58And I think we can see in Bullet in the Head,
00:33:01we can see it framed not just through Tiananmen,
00:33:02but still this real sense of anxiety and identity
00:33:05and this turmoil about what's coming next.
00:33:27One of the films sometimes people forget from John Woo is Once a Thief,
00:33:31which is actually a really good film.
00:33:33And it's where he kind of combines his action and his brotherhood
00:33:37with his love of like Hitchcock
00:33:40and some of those sort of like caper films and everything like that.
00:33:42And it's, I think it's a fantastic film.
00:33:44It's really got better and better with age.
00:33:46And it's a very interesting one as well
00:33:48because it actually moved into being a TV series too,
00:33:50which is something else we don't always think about.
00:33:52And it's one of John Woo's films, I think,
00:33:54especially looking at these Hollywood films.
00:33:57We look back.
00:33:58He was having some Hollywood influences,
00:34:00I think, earlier in his career,
00:34:02towards the end of his time in Hong Kong.
00:34:04There's this movie,
00:34:06somehow he dreams of having a candidates
00:34:17On his side of his career,
00:34:19In his connective history,
00:34:20he also recorded a Causes juego.
00:34:23With a lot of original Disney stations,
00:34:24when he posted them,
00:34:24and he connected the four bands.
00:34:27Actually,
00:34:28he connected the best to me
00:34:29when he connected the into the matrix and waseh
00:34:31he could unconscious in it.
00:34:31He was usual of knowing there.
00:34:34and the director needs to do what he has to do.
00:34:37He has said that we will follow his plan,
00:34:43but there are times we will think there will be a lot more
00:34:48more interesting and more difficult to add to some of the difficulties.
00:34:55I remember that there were a few days in a car
00:35:02I had a car in a car, and I had a car, and I had a car.
00:35:09I told my director to do two things.
00:35:13I had a challenge to do my car.
00:35:16The car was on the car, and then hit the car.
00:35:23The car was on the car, and then hit the car.
00:35:30I think that I can do the work and the scene in this movie can be very beautiful.
00:35:39But the director has a very big challenge for me.
00:35:46If I was in the morning of the morning, I would say,
00:35:51you can do this?
00:35:53This is really difficult for me.
00:35:55But I also had to work with so many films
00:35:58I knew that he wanted to film this film
00:36:04Then he would say that he wanted to film this film
00:36:05Then I would...
00:36:09In the evening of the night of the night
00:36:12I would have prepared all the things to do
00:36:16Actually, I had done a few hours of the film
00:36:18I would have prepared to film this film
00:36:22So...
00:36:23This is more than a kid.
00:36:28When I was able to do it, I was very surprised.
00:36:33Since this movie was a lot of years ago,
00:36:38I think this was a pretty fun thing.
00:36:55At that time, a lot of Hollywood action movies were very slick, and they were cutting up
00:37:00the action, and it was very boring.
00:37:04John Woo was still on the edge of things, you know, the way he moved the camera, the
00:37:08way he staged a fight, or staged an action scene, so I learned a lot.
00:37:14For me, watching movies, and it still is, you know, for me it's kind of an instruction
00:37:20book of how you do things, you know, how do things work.
00:37:24So I'm watching those movies over and over again, and then see how does somebody come
00:37:29into a room, how the fighting happens, which angles do work, and studying them and trying
00:37:35to use that in my work.
00:37:52For the Hong Kong movie, usually the foreign market, it usually only released in the Chinatown
00:38:03theater, with a pretty bad copy, you know, we have never had a world market, a real world
00:38:14market, we have never got this, you know, so, and we also have never noticed, you know,
00:38:25anybody will pay attention, anybody in Hollywood will pay any attention for our movie.
00:38:47The reason it was unusual for a film like Hard Boiled to come round your actual theaters,
00:38:55as opposed to your art house places, is that there'd been a long time since there was, as
00:39:02a big exploitation trend that was predicated on films that didn't come from America.
00:39:08Probably you have to go back to the Kung Fu movies of the early 70s.
00:39:14In the wake of Bruce Lee being really popular, there was a window when a whole bunch of Shaw
00:39:21Brothers and Golden Hardest films were comically badly dubbed and released to American grindhouses
00:39:28and drive-ins. Or indeed in Britain, I saw tons of those films, they quite often came out as supporting
00:39:34features, you'd go and see Frankenstein and the monster from hell, a hammer film, and it would have a girl
00:39:41with the thunderbolt kick, would be the support picture.
00:39:44And that was only like two or three years the craze lasted. Obviously, Bruce Lee died and Kung Fu was
00:39:51cancelled, and everybody started making slasher movies or whatever, you know, took over from that.
00:39:57Before that, there had been Spaghetti Westerns. And of course, Spaghetti Westerns are Italian Spanish films, but they kind of
00:40:05look American.
00:40:06You know, they had Clint Eastwood in. Or if they didn't have Clint Eastwood in, they had some Italian guy
00:40:10who was given a really Anglo name to erase the foreignness.
00:40:17And that was probably true across Europe as well. Yeah, it's like these films wanted to be American.
00:40:24There was a sense that deep down, the kind of heroic bloodshed gangster movies that John Woo specialised in,
00:40:33they didn't want to be American, but they wanted to refer to American cinema.
00:40:38Obviously, you know, I think if you look back on it, the origins of almost all these films are James
00:40:47Cagney gangster movies from the early 1930s,
00:40:50things like The Public Enemy, particularly The Roaring Twenties.
00:40:54They have all of the elements that are in John Woo movies.
00:40:58You know, they're about vicious gangsters, but they're also about sentimental men.
00:41:03They're also about relationships between men.
00:41:07Yeah, how to exist outside the law and retain a certain kind of integrity, all this kind of stuff.
00:41:13That's the Warner Brothers gangster cycle of the 1930s.
00:41:16Then, in Woo's case in particular, it's the fact that those films were taken up by French film critics who
00:41:26made their own versions.
00:41:28It's sometimes, if you look at the official record, it will say that John Woo was influenced by the French
00:41:35Nouvelle Vague,
00:41:36and that tends to mean, you know, Godard and Truffaut.
00:41:39And they made, you know, crime movies.
00:41:41But what that really means is Jean-Pierre Melville.
00:41:45I know that Le Samurai, with Alain Delon as a hitman, is a particular favourite of John Woo,
00:41:52and you can see that he goes back to that over and over again.
00:41:56Melville made other really terrific French gangster movies with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon,
00:42:03and there were other directors that did that as well.
00:42:06There's, for some reason, French gangster films didn't click the way Italian westerns did,
00:42:11but there were a bunch of them.
00:42:14They were well-reviewed.
00:42:15They were certainly well-distributed outside France.
00:42:19And obviously, they made a lot of an impression on John Woo,
00:42:22because there are so many elements of a French version of an American archetype
00:42:31that then become part of a Chinese version,
00:42:35and incorporating various other kind of mythic structures,
00:42:37plus all sorts of material which is personal to the filmmaker.
00:42:43And that then becomes something new.
00:42:45That's probably why there was a craze outside China for these films.
00:42:51These were films that were discovered.
00:42:54We didn't tend to see them as they came out.
00:42:57It was only from Hard Boiled,
00:42:59which I suppose is the last of John Woo's first phase of,
00:43:03or actually it's his second phase of Chinese filmmaking.
00:43:06There was a whole bunch of stuff in the 1970s,
00:43:09which is still a subject for further research.
00:43:11But the fact that The Killer made such an impression on people
00:43:15that they went and sought out the Better Tomorrow films.
00:43:18They went and sought out Bullet to the Head.
00:43:21And then when Hard Boiled came out,
00:43:23everyone was primed for it and kind of knew what to expect.
00:43:27And that was something that plainly resonated.
00:43:32I mean, it got him work outside China for a start.
00:43:35It was something that made not just film fans,
00:43:39but film executives sit up and say,
00:43:42not only is this a man we could work with,
00:43:45but this is a style that we could adapt.
00:44:00Although John Woo had a very, very long and successful career in Hollywood
00:44:03and still continues to this day,
00:44:06he had quite an interesting start there.
00:44:07I mean, Hard Target's a fantastic film,
00:44:09but we have Sam Raimi famously brought on set
00:44:12to keep an eye on how things were going.
00:44:14And it's quite interesting when you think of it.
00:44:16I mean, John Woo had just before that given his Hard Boiled,
00:44:19arguably the greatest action film of all time,
00:44:21internationally, you know, from anywhere.
00:44:22He's doing this film in Hollywood.
00:44:24We've watched Sam Raimi on set.
00:44:26Just, did they not trust him?
00:44:27What did he think he was going to,
00:44:28what did he think he was going to do?
00:44:31And that's very interesting.
00:44:32And I think it took him a little time,
00:44:34not so much to get up to speed in terms of his filmmaking,
00:44:37but maybe just to convince Hollywood,
00:44:39like, yes, this guy's the greatest action director in the world.
00:44:41He's a safe pair of fans.
00:44:43You know, studios, they wanted John.
00:44:46They were scared for John to be John.
00:44:49And the irony is you have to let John be John
00:44:51if you want that woo factor.
00:44:54I mean, it's not going to come any other way,
00:44:55but they kept wanting to have sort of that,
00:45:00they wanted what made John so famous and exciting
00:45:04and his movies so special, but they were also nervous.
00:45:06It just, it was too, it was hard for them
00:45:08to embrace sort of that exciting chaos
00:45:13that John can put on screen.
00:45:15But it's not just chaos.
00:45:16It's not just violence for violence's sake.
00:45:18It's not celebrating violence at all.
00:45:20And I think that some executives,
00:45:22they just, it was harder for them.
00:45:24Either they understood it,
00:45:25but they weren't sure how to do it in American cinema.
00:45:28Maybe they were nervous how that would present,
00:45:30or maybe they didn't know themselves.
00:45:31That I can't really speak to.
00:45:33But I would say that for sure,
00:45:36there are so many times they would try
00:45:39to sort of handcuff John
00:45:40and not let him do what he wanted to do
00:45:43to make it what it could be.
00:45:44I think that, you know,
00:45:46that moment of Hong Kong cinema
00:45:48where John created this gun-fu, right?
00:45:51He created something that had never come before.
00:45:54That kind of energy and excitement,
00:45:56you have to let that be unbridled.
00:45:58I mean, it can't just be something that you,
00:46:01that you manipulate or that you,
00:46:05that's a better word for that.
00:46:06It's not something that you can harness and say,
00:46:09okay, I'm going to just make sure
00:46:12every little element is perfect before I let you go.
00:46:15You have to just,
00:46:16you just have to let that magic happen,
00:46:18however it happens.
00:46:19And I think they were nervous.
00:46:21So it didn't, so, you know, yeah,
00:46:22they tried to, it was hard to make,
00:46:24hard to let John be John,
00:46:26I think from watching with the Hollywood perspective.
00:46:29In the Netherlands,
00:46:30John Hu was not really somebody
00:46:32that was well known by the audience.
00:46:37But for me, it was like a god, you know.
00:46:40It was the Hong Kong cinema,
00:46:41The Killer,
00:46:42and all these early movies of him.
00:46:45I saw them all.
00:46:46At that time,
00:46:46they were not theatrical movies, you know.
00:46:49So I got them on a video,
00:46:50and I rented them on a video,
00:46:52and brought them home and watched them.
00:46:54So for me,
00:46:56Hard Targets was one of those fucking cool movies.
00:46:59The only thing it was,
00:46:59it was like John Hu goes to America, you know.
00:47:03John Hu makes an American movie,
00:47:05what was very unique.
00:47:06But for me,
00:47:07all the movies that I saw up till that time
00:47:09were Hong Kong movies,
00:47:11his Hong Kong slate.
00:47:13So, yeah, no,
00:47:14I loved Hard Targets one.
00:47:16It was really cool,
00:47:16because it was like John Hu going to Hollywood,
00:47:19you know.
00:47:41His next Hollywood film,
00:47:43The Broken Arrow,
00:47:43it's kind of a mix.
00:47:45I think there are some aspects of Broken Arrow
00:47:46which I think work very well,
00:47:48and we can start to see
00:47:49John Hu's own sort of a classic Hollywood style,
00:47:52like the Bullet Ballet style,
00:47:53starts to come through.
00:47:55But it is a film kind of smothered by
00:47:57John Travolta's ego.
00:47:59I don't think there's any other way to see it.
00:48:01It's a star vehicle film.
00:48:02This was not a John Hu film.
00:48:04He was brought in,
00:48:05absolutely,
00:48:06to bring his style to the film,
00:48:07but this was a John Travolta film.
00:48:09He was brought in to make
00:48:10a John Travolta vehicle.
00:48:12And he still does a very good job.
00:48:13He still manages to get his style across.
00:48:16He gets some of his themes across,
00:48:17some of his visual cues and motifs
00:48:19are absolutely in the film.
00:48:20And it's a fun film.
00:48:21But if it's Hollywood ones,
00:48:23it does feel slightly less
00:48:25like a John Hu film.
00:48:26But on the other hand,
00:48:27it was another successful adaptation of him
00:48:30to the Hollywood system.
00:48:31Having this giant blockbuster
00:48:32and proving he was a very safe pair of hands
00:48:34and he didn't need to worry about him.
00:48:36It was a great stepping stone
00:48:37for him to do more of what he wanted,
00:48:39I think,
00:48:40and to work in more of his stuff
00:48:41to have a bit more autonomy
00:48:42in the production of his coming films.
00:48:44The follow-up, Broken Arrow,
00:48:46with John Travolta and Christian Slater,
00:48:49is kind of similar.
00:48:50It's not anonymous,
00:48:53but it's your basic action film.
00:48:57It has the...
00:48:58Again, it's got the opposition
00:48:59of two movie stars
00:49:02who kind of are romantic leads
00:49:05in themselves
00:49:05and you set them up against each other.
00:49:08I remember I saw Broken Arrow
00:49:10at the press show
00:49:11before reading anything about it
00:49:15and being kind of surprised
00:49:17that Christian Slater
00:49:19was the good guy
00:49:19and John Travolta was the bad guy.
00:49:20It could have been the other way around,
00:49:22and they could have flipped roles.
00:49:24And of course,
00:49:24that leads you to Face Off,
00:49:26which is exactly that.
00:49:36John Woo entered my life
00:49:38in a very unexpected way.
00:49:42My writing partner, Mike,
00:49:43and I had written Face Off
00:49:45and sold it and optioned it
00:49:48to Warner Brothers
00:49:48in very early 1991.
00:49:50The first draft was very futuristic,
00:49:53mostly to justify the technology
00:49:55of face swapping.
00:49:57So we kind of backed into it
00:49:58in a weird way.
00:49:59It wasn't like it just popped
00:50:01into our minds.
00:50:02At that point,
00:50:03it became,
00:50:04well, can we pull this crazy idea off?
00:50:06But when we were at Paramount,
00:50:08I don't know if it was
00:50:10for budgetary reasons.
00:50:11It may have been,
00:50:12but I don't think so.
00:50:13I mean,
00:50:14I think the studio
00:50:16and the producer,
00:50:18production company,
00:50:19they wanted us to strip away
00:50:22a lot of the futuristic aspects.
00:50:24And it became very clear
00:50:26that they were not interested,
00:50:28that it was just going to sit
00:50:30in development hell
00:50:31and never get made.
00:50:33And it was very discouraging.
00:50:35Then sometime after that,
00:50:3792, 93,
00:50:38I'm sitting in the
00:50:39New Beverly Cinema,
00:50:41which then as now
00:50:42is a revival house.
00:50:44And I don't even remember
00:50:45what I went to see,
00:50:46but there was a trailer
00:50:46ahead of time.
00:50:48And it was this insane
00:50:49shoot-em-up trailer.
00:50:51And I remember watching it going,
00:50:52is that animated?
00:50:53Like the way people
00:50:54were flying around.
00:50:56I'm like,
00:50:56is that animation?
00:50:58And so when the movie came
00:51:00to be shown,
00:51:02my partner and I went
00:51:04and we watched it
00:51:05and it was the killer.
00:51:08The Chia Young Fat,
00:51:09John Woo,
00:51:09famous movie.
00:51:11And after it was over,
00:51:13we looked at each other
00:51:14and said,
00:51:14Face Off is a John Woo movie.
00:51:16Even though we had never
00:51:17heard of John Woo.
00:51:19And of course,
00:51:20subsequent to that,
00:51:21I just devoured everything
00:51:23I could see.
00:51:25This is long before
00:51:25I ever met him
00:51:26or even thought
00:51:27I ever would meet him.
00:51:41Face Off,
00:51:43which had been sitting
00:51:43in Warner Brothers
00:51:44just on a shelf somewhere,
00:51:46the option expired.
00:51:47And when the option expired,
00:51:50suddenly,
00:51:51the day the option expired,
00:51:52all the young executives
00:51:53who had been at Warner Brothers,
00:51:55like the people with no power,
00:51:57had loved the script
00:51:58and they had all moved on
00:52:00to better companies
00:52:01and better jobs
00:52:02and they had been tracking
00:52:03when the option expired.
00:52:05And so we were able
00:52:06to kind of set it up
00:52:07with David Permit,
00:52:08who's still the producer,
00:52:09thanks to Kevin Messick,
00:52:11who was his development exec.
00:52:12Kevin Messick's gone on
00:52:13to have an incredible career
00:52:14as a producer as well.
00:52:18And it, you know,
00:52:19they in turn took it over
00:52:21to Paramount
00:52:22and Sherry Lansing bought it,
00:52:24read it and bought it.
00:52:25And then it,
00:52:26so then it became
00:52:27a search for a director.
00:52:29And we had two guys ahead of us.
00:52:31Rob Cohen was the first director
00:52:33and he left to make Dragonheart.
00:52:35And then they had Marco Brambilla,
00:52:38who had been a TV commercial,
00:52:40very successful commercial director.
00:52:42And he had just made
00:52:43Demolition Man with Stallone,
00:52:45which is actually the movie
00:52:46that killed Face Off
00:52:48at Warner Brothers
00:52:49because they were like,
00:52:50we have a futuristic action movie.
00:52:51We don't need another one.
00:52:52I was at William Morris at the time
00:52:55and my agent,
00:52:57my agency represented John Woo.
00:53:03And so they had read the script.
00:53:05Finally, they got it.
00:53:07Once we, well, they got it,
00:53:09of course,
00:53:09when we sold it to Warner Brothers.
00:53:11And then when we resold it
00:53:12to Paramount,
00:53:14they really got it.
00:53:15And this,
00:53:16the revised script
00:53:17had gone to John Woo
00:53:18and apparently he really liked it
00:53:20and came on board.
00:53:22And of course,
00:53:24John was,
00:53:25John Travolta was working
00:53:27with John Woo on Broken Arrow.
00:53:29I think for John,
00:53:31it was the same kind of chemistry
00:53:32as he had with Chai and Fat.
00:53:34You know,
00:53:35John Travolta kind of had that same,
00:53:37does have that same regal quality,
00:53:40that Chai and Fat embodies.
00:53:42And I think he felt that very strongly with John.
00:53:47If you don't have money,
00:53:48you don't have money.
00:53:50Sometimes I want to do something,
00:53:51but I can't do anything.
00:53:54I believe in the truth.
00:53:56But no one will believe me.
00:53:58People will be the best.
00:54:00We don't know how Nick got the script,
00:54:02but Nick Cage got the script
00:54:03and was desperate to be in it
00:54:05and had lobbied Paramount to be in it.
00:54:08But he had made a movie for Paramount,
00:54:10which had not done well.
00:54:12And so they were not enthusiastic about Nick.
00:54:15And they said that Nick could be in it
00:54:17if Johnny Depp said yes,
00:54:20which we were like,
00:54:21no Johnny Depp,
00:54:22yes, Nick.
00:54:22Even from the beginning,
00:54:25we thought Nick Cage was a great idea.
00:54:27And we just couldn't convince anybody.
00:54:30But when Travolta came on as the lead,
00:54:32they were more conducive to Nick
00:54:34as what they saw as the second,
00:54:36you know, kind of the second lead.
00:54:39And hilariously,
00:54:41so Nick didn't get paid nearly as much
00:54:42as John Travolta,
00:54:44but hilariously during prep,
00:54:47he won his Oscar.
00:54:49And Nick won his Oscar for leaving Las Vegas.
00:54:52And suddenly they were like,
00:54:53his agent called.
00:54:54It's like,
00:54:55yeah, I don't know if Nick's going to do face-off after all.
00:54:57And so they had to kind of, I think,
00:55:00up the, you know,
00:55:01start cutting the checks
00:55:02to make sure Nick remained happy.
00:55:06But Nick loved John Woo too.
00:55:08You know,
00:55:08John is an actor's director completely
00:55:12and loves to collaborate with his actors,
00:55:15loves to make his actors look good,
00:55:17even when they're playing the bad guy.
00:55:20And, you know,
00:55:21they all knew that.
00:55:22And so a lot of people really
00:55:24desperately wanted to work with John Woo.
00:55:37We were on set,
00:55:39essentially every day of a six-month shoot.
00:55:41Often writers are not even invited.
00:55:44But John isn't,
00:55:46John isn't that way.
00:55:48He,
00:55:49I don't know if I'm ever going to hear this
00:55:51from a director again,
00:55:52but I certainly heard it from John
00:55:54when he,
00:55:55you know,
00:55:56told us we were expected
00:55:57to be on set every day.
00:55:59And we were like,
00:55:59oh, thank you so much.
00:56:00He goes,
00:56:01don't thank me.
00:56:02You're,
00:56:02you're a department head.
00:56:05You are head of the writing department.
00:56:07Just like they expect,
00:56:09you know,
00:56:10the product,
00:56:11you know,
00:56:11hair,
00:56:12makeup,
00:56:13costumes,
00:56:14all those people have to be there.
00:56:16And so,
00:56:17you know,
00:56:18John expected us,
00:56:20if the actors
00:56:21or,
00:56:21or we had to shift gears
00:56:24for some reason
00:56:25and move locations
00:56:26due to weather
00:56:27or technological glitches,
00:56:29we were there to,
00:56:30to handle it with him.
00:56:31One sequence that,
00:56:33that really gave my writing partner
00:56:35and I nervous breakdown
00:56:36because in the original script,
00:56:38that was always a funeral,
00:56:40but it was supposed to be outside,
00:56:41like at an Arlington National Cemetery type thing.
00:56:45And Nicholas Cage,
00:56:47as the good guy,
00:56:48was going to use the same sniper rifle
00:56:50that Sasha gave him
00:56:52that had killed his kid.
00:56:53It was all supposed to like pay off
00:56:55to try to trank John Travolta.
00:56:59And they came to us like two weeks before,
00:57:01like a week before they're supposed
00:57:02to start to shoot this.
00:57:03And it was at the end of the movie
00:57:05and production.
00:57:06And they said,
00:57:07we can't do it outside.
00:57:08It has to be,
00:57:09you know,
00:57:09we have to rewrite it.
00:57:10We have to make it smaller
00:57:11and all this stuff.
00:57:11So Mike and I freaked out
00:57:13and we went to John
00:57:15and we were like,
00:57:16well,
00:57:16what are we going to do?
00:57:17And blah,
00:57:17blah,
00:57:17blah.
00:57:18He went,
00:57:18John will just was like,
00:57:20he literally just looked at us
00:57:22and kind of smiled and went,
00:57:23don't worry about it.
00:57:25And we showed up at set
00:57:26and they had built this,
00:57:27built this chapel.
00:57:29He had the whole thing blocked out
00:57:31to shoot and saw indoors
00:57:32much more intimately,
00:57:34which was much better anyway.
00:57:35But when we got there,
00:57:36there were crates of pigeons.
00:57:38There were crates of doves.
00:57:39And he started,
00:57:41we said,
00:57:41hey,
00:57:41John,
00:57:42I saw,
00:57:42what are these doves doing here?
00:57:43And he said,
00:57:44I have to put in my trademark.
00:57:48And he did.
00:57:49And so,
00:57:50yeah,
00:57:50that's a great,
00:57:50it's a great moment.
00:57:51Everyone,
00:57:52everyone is a John Woo fan,
00:57:54claps when they see
00:57:55the slow motion doves.
00:58:00Big ball!
00:58:08For John,
00:58:09he never stops trying to think,
00:58:12how can I make this more exciting?
00:58:14How can I make this bigger?
00:58:16What can I do
00:58:17that I haven't done before?
00:58:18Or what did I have
00:58:19previously storyboarded,
00:58:20but the last studio
00:58:21wouldn't let me do?
00:58:22Let me see if I can do it this time.
00:58:23And so he would pull out
00:58:25something that,
00:58:25you know,
00:58:26he noodled on for a long time before.
00:58:27But he never stops.
00:58:28He never stops
00:58:29trying to make it better,
00:58:31trying to make it more interesting.
00:58:33I think for him,
00:58:36you know,
00:58:36creating these montages
00:58:37that,
00:58:39these action spectacles,
00:58:41that's just sort of
00:58:42half the equation for him
00:58:44because he loves to pull in
00:58:47this,
00:58:48like,
00:58:48how do I make the sound score
00:58:50elevated?
00:58:50And what can I do
00:58:52to focus on maybe
00:58:53this interesting religious symbol
00:58:55that will mean something
00:58:57about redemption,
00:58:58you know,
00:58:59and while the cacophony
00:59:00of bullets are going off
00:59:01and things are being,
00:59:02you know,
00:59:02bullets are sprayed
00:59:03all around the room,
00:59:04but we're focused
00:59:04on this,
00:59:05like,
00:59:05religious symbol.
00:59:06And he creates
00:59:08this tapestry.
00:59:10And for him,
00:59:11that's what he's thinking
00:59:11in the back of his mouth.
00:59:12And he does it
00:59:13while he's shooting.
00:59:14He's editing
00:59:14while he's shooting,
00:59:15but he's constantly thinking
00:59:16of, like,
00:59:17how can I create,
00:59:18how can I elevate?
00:59:19It's never just,
00:59:21let me just shoot it,
00:59:23shoot,
00:59:23shoot,
00:59:23shoot,
00:59:24for action's sake,
00:59:25you know?
00:59:25It's not just,
00:59:27you know,
00:59:27like violence for violence's sake
00:59:29because it's not at all.
00:59:31The guy's just a savant.
00:59:32He's just a movie-making savant.
00:59:34And the only thing
00:59:35he seemed
00:59:36to care about
00:59:38was being on set
00:59:40and just,
00:59:40you just see him
00:59:42running that movie
00:59:43back and forth
00:59:44in his head
00:59:46constantly.
00:59:46That's just kind of
00:59:47what he did.
00:59:48And he was
00:59:48in a total sort of zone,
00:59:51like a fugue state
00:59:52where he just,
00:59:54you know,
00:59:54he had his 18 camera setups
00:59:56and all this stuff.
00:59:57And he knew exactly
00:59:59the movie he wanted to make.
01:00:00It was very comfortable
01:00:01for him
01:00:02to make that,
01:00:03tell that story.
01:00:04And it fits in perfectly,
01:00:05I think,
01:00:06with his honks,
01:00:07you know,
01:00:08his Chia-Yung Fat Hong Kong films.
01:00:09It just really,
01:00:10it sits in there nicely.
01:00:11And it was such an honor
01:00:14and honestly,
01:00:14and a privilege,
01:00:15which is to work
01:00:16with him.
01:00:25Face Off was the one
01:00:26where you sort of felt
01:00:27John Woo was really
01:00:28being allowed
01:00:29to do the crazy stuff
01:00:30that was part.
01:00:31It was also a project
01:00:32that came to him
01:00:34and was tailored
01:00:35to his sensibilities.
01:00:36And it allowed
01:00:37a kind of crazy,
01:00:39it is a film that,
01:00:40again,
01:00:41you just have to go with it.
01:00:43You just have to
01:00:44accept its premise
01:00:46and then it's astonishing.
01:00:49And after that,
01:00:51he got Mission Impossible 2.
01:00:53Big franchise film.
01:00:55It was almost,
01:00:56there was a slight,
01:00:57an interesting shift
01:00:59going on.
01:01:00It's previously,
01:01:01if you were a breakout
01:01:02action movie director,
01:01:03what you wanted to get
01:01:05was a diehard sequel.
01:01:06That's what,
01:01:07you know,
01:01:09Rennie Harlin had done,
01:01:10you know,
01:01:10but no,
01:01:12suddenly it was
01:01:12a Mission Impossible
01:01:13was the franchise
01:01:14to hop on board.
01:01:16And actually,
01:01:18Woo's Mission Impossible film
01:01:20isn't particularly liked
01:01:21by fans of the series.
01:01:23It's thought to be
01:01:24sort of a misstep.
01:01:26It actually does
01:01:27something similar
01:01:27to Face Off,
01:01:28is that it introduces
01:01:30its villain,
01:01:31Doug Ray Scott,
01:01:33wearing Tom Cruise's face
01:01:35and then gets
01:01:37into the opposition
01:01:38between these two guys
01:01:39who are sort of
01:01:39the same person
01:01:41and they're both
01:01:41masters of disguise
01:01:42so they end up
01:01:43sort of imitating
01:01:44each other.
01:01:45So it's kind of got
01:01:46John Woo themes in it
01:01:47but it's also got
01:01:48a lot of Mission Impossible
01:01:49stuff in it.
01:01:50But it's got the
01:01:51weird motorcycle stunts
01:01:52and the little slow-mo
01:01:53moments and the backflips
01:01:55and it's got absurd stuff
01:01:56like Tandine Newton
01:01:59infecting herself
01:02:00with the dangerous
01:02:01pandemic disease
01:02:03and being ready
01:02:05to commit suicide
01:02:05to end it all
01:02:06and it's got
01:02:08fluttering doves too
01:02:09and slow-mo dust
01:02:12and filters
01:02:12and sort of stuff.
01:02:14So it's kind of
01:02:15a caricature
01:02:17of what a John Woo
01:02:19Mission Impossible film
01:02:20might be.
01:02:21But of course
01:02:22it was a huge success.
01:02:24So it was only there
01:02:26and it was Windtalkers
01:02:27and Paycheck
01:02:28were the films
01:02:29that ended
01:02:30Woo's Hollywood streak.
01:02:32He's kind of talked
01:02:33somewhat about being
01:02:34kind of frustrated
01:02:35by his experience
01:02:36in America
01:02:37because what I think
01:02:39Hollywood wanted
01:02:40was lots of cool action.
01:02:42So I think the thing
01:02:43that was kind of
01:02:44harder for him to do
01:02:45was kind of maintain
01:02:46some of the sort
01:02:47of the thematics
01:02:48that were at the core
01:02:49of his films.
01:02:50But we still have
01:02:51these kind of incredible
01:02:52sort of action pieces
01:02:54which sort of become
01:02:55larger and larger
01:02:56and more sort of
01:02:59excessive in scale
01:03:00in a way
01:03:02because he has
01:03:03these sort of
01:03:03Hollywood budgets
01:03:04and he's kind of able
01:03:06to draw on
01:03:07all these kinds of effects.
01:03:08So we have
01:03:09sort of speedboat chases
01:03:11which sort of become
01:03:13which make the
01:03:14sort of speedboat sequence
01:03:15in The Killer
01:03:16just kind of look
01:03:17really small.
01:03:18Or we have
01:03:19the sort of
01:03:19the motorbike chase
01:03:20at the end
01:03:21with Tom Cruise
01:03:23in Mission Impossible
01:03:24which is kind of
01:03:25absolutely sort of
01:03:26fantastical.
01:03:37I think as a result
01:03:38of John Woo's
01:03:39success in Hollywood
01:03:39and he was a known
01:03:41commodity
01:03:41and audiences over here
01:03:42know him
01:03:42I think that's why
01:03:43his Red Cliff films
01:03:44actually were
01:03:44quite widely released
01:03:45in the West as well.
01:03:46His sort of return
01:03:47to China
01:03:48and Hong Kong
01:03:49filmmaking
01:03:50after his time
01:03:50in Hollywood.
01:03:51I think wanting
01:03:52to return to a place
01:03:54in a space
01:03:54where people
01:03:55wouldn't be telling
01:03:56him what to do
01:03:57would not be
01:03:57restricting him
01:03:58from his vision
01:04:00and so
01:04:01and he's one of
01:04:02the few filmmakers
01:04:03that can just kind of
01:04:04keep going back
01:04:04and forth really.
01:04:06So the
01:04:06and that particular
01:04:07story which is
01:04:08you know based
01:04:09on one of the
01:04:10you know four canon
01:04:11of Chinese literature
01:04:12that story was
01:04:13something that's
01:04:14near and dear
01:04:14to his heart
01:04:15so he wanted
01:04:15to make that
01:04:16this big epic
01:04:17that story would
01:04:18not be easily told
01:04:19in Hollywood
01:04:20that I want
01:04:22to say today
01:04:23maybe today
01:04:23it could be
01:04:24in 2007
01:04:25in 2006
01:04:26when they were
01:04:26making the movie
01:04:27at that time
01:04:28in Hollywood
01:04:28I don't think
01:04:29that would have
01:04:29been well received
01:04:30it would have
01:04:31especially as a
01:04:32Chinese language project
01:04:33today you know
01:04:34that would be
01:04:35more like a shogun
01:04:36I absolutely think
01:04:36you could do it
01:04:37but at that time
01:04:38you couldn't
01:04:38and he really
01:04:39wanted to make
01:04:39that story
01:04:40and it was
01:04:40it was a big
01:04:41epic movie
01:04:44and it was
01:04:45it was just
01:04:45it's one of those
01:04:46artistic things
01:04:47right he had
01:04:47to get it out
01:04:48it was in him
01:04:49and he had
01:04:49to get it out
01:04:49it was very
01:04:50well received
01:04:51and it did do
01:04:52well
01:04:52it was it was
01:04:53a really exciting
01:04:54film and I know
01:04:55for an international
01:04:56version they kind
01:04:56of combine parts
01:04:57one and two
01:04:58and and show
01:04:59you know put that
01:05:00out for a western
01:05:02audience
01:05:03again if we had
01:05:04done that today
01:05:04I think the movie
01:05:05would even be
01:05:06bigger for sure
01:05:18if you're looking
01:05:19at periods
01:05:20of John Woo's
01:05:22career
01:05:22the period
01:05:23we are in
01:05:24as we are
01:05:25recording this
01:05:26seems to be
01:05:27a um
01:05:28a second
01:05:29international
01:05:29period
01:05:30after
01:05:31the early
01:05:332000s
01:05:34I think after
01:05:34wind talkers
01:05:35and paycheck
01:05:36had not done
01:05:38as well
01:05:38as hoped
01:05:39he returned
01:05:41to China
01:05:42and made
01:05:42Red Cliffs
01:05:43and The Crossing
01:05:43and big
01:05:45successful
01:05:46Chinese films
01:05:47which didn't
01:05:48quite have
01:05:49the international
01:05:49aspect
01:05:51effect
01:05:52they were
01:05:53seen
01:05:54but they
01:05:55weren't
01:05:56maybe embraced
01:05:57the way
01:05:58that the
01:05:59the 1990s
01:06:01films were
01:06:02so Woo
01:06:03has gone
01:06:04international
01:06:05again
01:06:05he made
01:06:06Silent
01:06:07Night
01:06:08which is
01:06:09very canny
01:06:10of course
01:06:10it's an
01:06:11international
01:06:11film
01:06:11and it
01:06:12has no
01:06:12dialogue
01:06:12so there
01:06:13are no
01:06:13subtitles
01:06:14so it
01:06:15in theory
01:06:16can play
01:06:16anywhere
01:06:17and that's
01:06:18a hard
01:06:20bit and
01:06:20hard boiled
01:06:20revenge story
01:06:21and then
01:06:22he did
01:06:23something odd
01:06:24the remaking
01:06:25his own
01:06:26masterpiece
01:06:27as it were
01:06:27the remake
01:06:28of The Killer
01:06:29has been
01:06:29in development
01:06:31for quite
01:06:32a number
01:06:33of years
01:06:33I mean
01:06:34in fact
01:06:35we started
01:06:35it over
01:06:36a decade
01:06:36ago
01:06:37well over
01:06:38a decade
01:06:38ago
01:06:39and at
01:06:40the time
01:06:40John wasn't
01:06:41interested to
01:06:41direct it
01:06:42because he's
01:06:42already made
01:06:42that movie
01:06:43so why should
01:06:43he make it
01:06:44again he was
01:06:44just going
01:06:44to produce
01:06:45it and we
01:06:45had approached
01:06:46a Korean
01:06:46director
01:06:46and a Korean
01:06:47star we
01:06:47had gone
01:06:48that direction
01:06:48we had
01:06:49worked with
01:06:49some different
01:06:50sales companies
01:06:50we were
01:06:51approaching
01:06:51other actors
01:06:52we had done
01:06:53a lot of
01:06:53different iterations
01:06:54of how we
01:06:55wanted that
01:06:55project to come
01:06:56about
01:06:56and then our
01:06:58writer Josh
01:06:59Campbell
01:06:59and his
01:07:00writing partner
01:07:01Matt Stoick
01:07:01had come to me
01:07:02and said
01:07:02you know
01:07:03I know
01:07:03we're not
01:07:04really finding
01:07:04footing
01:07:05the way
01:07:05we want
01:07:06to
01:07:06and this
01:07:07was before
01:07:07we'd seen
01:07:08anything like
01:07:09it
01:07:09I think
01:07:09there was
01:07:10only one
01:07:10example
01:07:11of this
01:07:12but having
01:07:13a female lead
01:07:13I know that
01:07:14sounds crazy
01:07:15today to say
01:07:16that but
01:07:16you know
01:07:1615 years
01:07:17ago
01:07:17it really
01:07:18wasn't being
01:07:18done
01:07:19and we saw
01:07:20like one
01:07:21example
01:07:21and we're
01:07:21like yeah
01:07:22gee
01:07:22let's turn
01:07:23the Chow Yun
01:07:23Fat character
01:07:25into a woman
01:07:26and I pitched
01:07:28that to John
01:07:28and I'm like
01:07:29I know this
01:07:30is and he
01:07:32got so excited
01:07:32he's like
01:07:33okay now
01:07:33that is a
01:07:34reason for
01:07:34me to
01:07:34remake this
01:07:35movie
01:07:35so we
01:07:36started on
01:07:37that process
01:07:37a while
01:07:38back and
01:07:39it took
01:07:40some time
01:07:40to find
01:07:41our footing
01:07:41took some
01:07:42time to
01:07:42get to
01:07:43the universal
01:07:44we'd cast
01:07:44the movie
01:07:45and then
01:07:46there was
01:07:46our actress
01:07:48needed to
01:07:48do a different
01:07:49project for
01:07:49asked her
01:07:50permission to
01:07:50do another
01:07:50project first
01:07:51and then
01:07:52the timing
01:07:52just ended
01:07:53up all
01:07:53just sort
01:07:54of not
01:07:54working out
01:07:55and then
01:07:55during all
01:07:56of that
01:07:56is when
01:07:57Silent Night
01:07:57kind of
01:07:58showed up
01:07:58so we
01:07:59were sort
01:08:00of still
01:08:00kind of
01:08:00going back
01:08:01and forth
01:08:03so Silent
01:08:04Night was
01:08:05this great
01:08:05opportunity
01:08:06for John
01:08:06to kind
01:08:07of get
01:08:07back into
01:08:08his Hollywood
01:08:09filmmaking
01:08:12focus on
01:08:13what makes
01:08:13what means
01:08:14the most
01:08:15to him
01:08:15which is
01:08:17not going
01:08:17to be
01:08:17dialogue
01:08:17and focus
01:08:19on sort
01:08:20of that
01:08:20tapestry
01:08:21of choreography
01:08:23and sound
01:08:24and symbolism
01:08:25and meaning
01:08:26that he
01:08:27likes to
01:08:27put into
01:08:28his scenes
01:08:28that's
01:08:29where he
01:08:30got to
01:08:30play
01:08:30and then
01:08:32we got
01:08:32to kind
01:08:33of
01:08:33after that
01:08:33pivot
01:08:34back to
01:08:34the killer
01:08:35so you
01:08:37know
01:08:37the killer
01:08:38originally
01:08:39is an
01:08:40homage
01:08:40to
01:08:41Le Samurai
01:08:41and the
01:08:43character
01:08:43Jeff
01:08:44in the
01:08:45original movie
01:08:46is based
01:08:47on the
01:08:47main character
01:08:48Jeff
01:08:49so there
01:08:50is already
01:08:51this relationship
01:08:52so it's
01:08:53really a love
01:08:54letter
01:08:54to Le Samurai
01:08:55because that's
01:08:56what the original
01:08:56killer was
01:08:57so we kind
01:08:58of brought
01:08:58it all
01:08:58full circle
01:08:59by being
01:08:59setting it
01:09:00in Paris
01:09:01making that
01:09:02sort of a
01:09:02character
01:09:02in the film
01:09:03had deep meaning
01:09:05to this remake
01:09:22so much of
01:09:261990s action
01:09:28cinema takes
01:09:29its cues
01:09:30from John
01:09:30Wu
01:09:31in the way
01:09:32that 1980s
01:09:33action cinema
01:09:34had taken
01:09:35its cues
01:09:36from
01:09:39Stallone
01:09:40and Die
01:09:40Hard
01:09:40and Schwarzenegger
01:09:42and there's a
01:09:43certain element
01:09:43of that
01:09:44in John
01:09:44Wu
01:09:44as well
01:09:45but that
01:09:46style
01:09:47you know
01:09:48you could argue
01:09:48that in the
01:09:4990s
01:09:49was flagging
01:09:50you know
01:09:51we had a
01:09:51couple of
01:09:52sort of
01:09:52later sequels
01:09:54to Rambo
01:09:54and Rocky
01:09:55that hadn't
01:09:55done well
01:09:56and then Schwarzenegger
01:09:57made The Last Action Hero
01:09:58which more or less
01:09:59was
01:09:59and that
01:10:01ended
01:10:01that particular
01:10:02cycle
01:10:03of Hollywood
01:10:04action
01:10:05and then
01:10:06John Wu
01:10:06came in
01:10:06and was
01:10:07instrumental
01:10:08in the next
01:10:10cycle
01:10:11even to the
01:10:12extent of
01:10:12picking up
01:10:13on who would
01:10:13be the next
01:10:14action stars
01:10:15and we haven't
01:10:16even got into
01:10:16talking about
01:10:17what Quentin Tarantino
01:10:18took from
01:10:20Chinese films
01:10:21in the 1980s
01:10:22in his own work
01:10:24but that's
01:10:25sort of
01:10:25almost
01:10:26beyond parody
01:10:27it's now
01:10:29an accepted
01:10:30wisdom
01:10:30but Quentin Tarantino
01:10:33wasn't the only
01:10:34American
01:10:34or British
01:10:36or international
01:10:37filmmaker
01:10:38to get lots
01:10:40of bootleg videos
01:10:41of the Better Tomorrow
01:10:42films
01:10:43and to learn
01:10:44lessons from him
01:10:45I was working
01:10:46with Universal
01:10:46at the time
01:10:47doing Death Race 2
01:10:48and then Death Race 3
01:10:49and we also did
01:10:50some original
01:10:51Dead and Tombstone
01:10:52what was like
01:10:53a really cool
01:10:53western that we did
01:10:54and at that time
01:10:56they were talking
01:10:57in Universal
01:10:58they were talking
01:10:59about doing
01:10:59a hard target sequel
01:11:00and I was fighting
01:11:01for it
01:11:02to get the job
01:11:03because for me
01:11:03John Wu
01:11:04was always
01:11:05John Wu
01:11:06was always
01:11:06a idol
01:11:07I liked the style
01:11:08of how he shot
01:11:09action
01:11:10how he moved
01:11:11the camera
01:11:11how everything
01:11:12was always in
01:11:13wide shots
01:11:13and I didn't
01:11:14like
01:11:15how kind
01:11:16of Hollywood
01:11:16was kind
01:11:17of
01:11:17when they do
01:11:17action
01:11:18everything is
01:11:18close-ups
01:11:19and tight
01:11:20and cut
01:11:21cut
01:11:21cut
01:11:21cut
01:11:21so I didn't
01:11:23like that
01:11:23so I think
01:11:24already in my
01:11:25early American
01:11:26movies
01:11:26like Death Race
01:11:27you already see
01:11:29me doing
01:11:29big wide shots
01:11:30of fights
01:11:31seeing actors
01:11:32in full swing
01:11:33doing longer
01:11:34takes
01:11:35so I was already
01:11:36doing the Hong Kong
01:11:37style action
01:11:39so when I heard
01:11:40internally
01:11:41at Universal
01:11:42that we're doing
01:11:42a hard target sequel
01:11:43I was like
01:11:44I need to do this
01:11:45I want to do this
01:11:46and so that's
01:11:48and they were like
01:11:48okay
01:11:49let's you do it
01:11:50I think what is
01:11:51unique about John
01:11:52is that he did
01:11:54his own thing
01:11:55I think he also
01:11:56kind of had to
01:11:57reinvent it himself
01:11:58you know
01:11:59and that's what
01:12:01I did as well
01:12:02you know
01:12:02it's kind of
01:12:02you look as a
01:12:03filmmaker
01:12:04and try things out
01:12:05and for me
01:12:06doing those
01:12:06all those sequels
01:12:07and prequels
01:12:08I had like
01:12:09a freedom
01:12:10with budget
01:12:11and stories
01:12:12and a franchise
01:12:12to kind of
01:12:14try things out
01:12:15and that's what
01:12:16you see in
01:12:17John's early work
01:12:18you know
01:12:18he was trying out
01:12:19a cinema
01:12:20that he likes
01:12:22you know
01:12:22that's also the
01:12:24reason why
01:12:24it's so unique
01:12:25I think he's
01:12:26an incredible
01:12:27artist
01:12:28and
01:12:29you know
01:12:30they just don't
01:12:30make
01:12:31nobody else
01:12:31makes John
01:12:32Wu the way
01:12:32John makes
01:12:33John Wu
01:12:33so
01:12:35yeah
01:12:35he's very special
01:12:37fortunately
01:12:38I only heard
01:12:39a lot of good
01:12:40things about
01:12:42my movie
01:12:43you know
01:12:43from the audience
01:12:44you know
01:12:45I guess
01:12:48the people
01:12:49who love my movie
01:12:50who love to watch
01:12:52my movie
01:12:53they wouldn't
01:12:54mind
01:12:57they had
01:12:58they
01:13:00they were
01:13:00too much
01:13:01blood
01:13:01you know
01:13:02or something
01:13:02or violence
01:13:03they have
01:13:05never mentioned
01:13:05you know
01:13:07and then
01:13:07they
01:13:08they know
01:13:09I
01:13:10I did it
01:13:12for meanings
01:13:13I've never
01:13:14tried to
01:13:15use
01:13:16using any
01:13:17violent issue
01:13:18to please
01:13:19audience
01:13:20you know
01:13:21I did it
01:13:22on purpose
01:13:23there was
01:13:25some meaning
01:13:25there
01:13:25you know
01:13:52you know
01:13:59how much
01:14:02you know
01:14:02I
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