John Woo

November 4, 1996

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Woo, undoubtably one of the great directors of the action genre, was born in Hong Kong in 1948. He began his directing career in the mid-1970's, mostly as a director of chop-socky comedies. In 1986, he hit it big with the movie, A Better Tomorrow, and started to direct serious action flicks instead of parodies of the genre. The movie became one of Hong Kong's highest grossing pictures of all time. It would not be until 1989 when Woo first caught the attention of Western audiences. His classic, The Killer, became a huge success in Woo's homeland, and has been called, by one notable critic, a film that "makes most American films seem anemic by comparison."

Woo made one more film in Hong Kong before making his American debut, which was the exciting thriller Hard-Boiled (1992). He has made two notable box-office hits in America, including the Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target (1993) and the Christian Slater-John Travolta film Broken Arrow (1996). Woo says that his influences include the westerns of John Ford and the work of French filmaker Jean-Pierre Melville. I'd say he gets it from the explosive work of Sam Peckinpah. I promise you, dear reader, you will be getting some reviews from me of the best of Woo's film career.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10: 9

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