John Woo returns to Hollywood

On December 1, Hong Kong director John Woo will release his first American film in twenty years, a dialogue-free Christmas revenge drama called “Silent Night.” But his mark on mainstream American cinema never disappeared. Woo’s style of action filmmaking can be discovered everywhere from Marvel movies to the “John Wick” series. At their best, Woo’s successors continue his style of visually stunning action pieces and bloody ballet choreography. At their worst, they create Woo-like action without Woo’s half-satirical, half-romantic approach to melodrama.

Wu (originally Wu Yue Sing) was born in 1946 in the mountainous Guangzhou region of China. He grew up in the slums of New Kowloon, formerly Shek Kip Mei, after his father, a high school teacher, moved his family to Hong Kong. Waugh was raised as a Christian, attending Hep Waugh Lutheran Elementary School, then Concordia Lutheran Middle School, followed by Matteo Ricci Catholic High School. When he was sixteen, his father died, and his family was too poor for him to continue his formal education. Wu once wanted to become a priest, but eventually fell in love with movies for the same reason he came to church: as a mental escape from poverty.

Wu has informally studied a range of filmmakers and their styles, including musicals by Jacques Demy and Bob Fosse, westerns by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah, and crime dramas by Jean-Pierre Melville and Martin Scorsese. He also served as assistant director to prolific martial arts director Zhang Chih, whose blood-soaked kung fu friendships also greatly inspired Wu’s “heroic bloodshed” dramas, such as A Better Tomorrow (1986) and The Assassin. (1989) and “Hard Boiled” (1992) starring Chow Yun Fat. Woo has developed an international following. His American fans included Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, and they moved to Hollywood in 1992.

John Woo’s American films, such as the 1997 Nicolas Cage-John Travolta body-swap action thriller “Face/Off,” tend to feature extreme craftsmanship and over-the-top performances (not to mention his signature white dove, symbolizing brotherly love). ). He directed “Broken Arrow” (1996) and “Mission: Impossible 2” (2000); In 2002, times Dave Kehr described Wu as “the most influential director in filmmaking today.” But the following year, his thriller Paycheck, directed by Philip K. Have it be a financial and critical disaster. “I couldn’t get any good scripts after Paycheck,” he told me. Since then, Wu, who lives in Los Angeles, has directed films in mainland China, including the two-part historical epic “Red Cliff” (2008). The first installation became one of the highest-grossing theatrical releases in Chinese history. In our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Wu talks about taking a break from Hollywood, his quest to make more personal films, and his lifelong belief in friendship, on and off screen.

Your father encouraged you to become a pastor. When you were growing up, how did you view your father and his values?

My father was a really strong man. He was also a Christian. He taught me to love our neighbors and treat them like our brothers and sisters. I see my father as a hero. He despised his father’s wealth and only wanted to become a teacher. My grandfather was very wealthy and had a lot of land. He just wanted his sons to take care of their property. My father wasn’t interested. So he left home to become a school teacher. He was a kind of rebel.

My father contracted tuberculosis after we moved (from China) to Hong Kong. We also lived in a bad neighborhood with a lot of crime. We were poor, but my father never begged for money. He always preferred to work there, even though he was very ill. He was very good at writing Chinese, and some people paid him a little money for it. He took everything he could earn.

My father always looked so young, no matter how old he was. He had the face of a teenager. (He laughs.When I was growing up, we looked like brothers. He also had a birthmark on his nose, like me, which I always thought was funny. I miss him.

What prompted you to go to seminary?

I was trained in a Christian elementary school, so I am a huge admirer of Jesus and his teachings. I have seen pastors help, pray, and encourage many poor people. It meant a lot, because we were living in a very dangerous area and we could have easily become gangsters. There were too many temptations and too many threats. I saw that these pastors had great hearts. They helped bring people back to normal life. This made me feel like if I grew up, I would want this job too. Not only to provide food to people but to teach young people about love and help them find the right way to live. I wish I can do that.