John Woo (Ng Yu Sam)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1946, born the poor son of a self professed "scholar," Ng Yu Sam entered the world in Canton province, China (PRC). While Yu Sam was a child, the Ng family fled to Hong Kong seeking a better life. From strife to sheer poverty young Ah-Sam was surrounded with death and violence. As a youth he witnessed mass flooding, colonial riots, triad brawls and the suffering of his father from a lifelong illness. Rather than give in to what appeared his lot in life, Yu Sam sought refuge in books and in church activities. With the money his mother made from menial job to job, church donations, and a monthly pittance from an American family via a "Save-the-children"-like organization, the Ng family were able to scrape by long enough for Ah-Sam to receive a rudimentary education. Like his father, Yu Sam developed a fondness for traditional wu sha pian ("martial chivalry" stories), as well as a taste for international cinema when his mother managed to save up enough to treat the family to the occasional show.
   While poor, Ah-Sam was rich with creativity. Aside from working odd jobs to help the family he managed to find time to participate in school and church plays, pilfer a few film books from libraries and book stores, and experienced the burgeoning literary consciousness many of his generation went through in the 1960s. With a group of friends, the newly dubbed "John" began experimenting with filmmaking and analysis. The "society" they formed published a newsletter and managed to cull together the rawest materials to produce 8mm experimental films, many of which they projected wherever they had an outlet.
Woo claims that many of his earliest films have disappeared, deteriorated or were stolen. One that survived, "Accidentally," displays a rail-thin Woo as both star and director, playing a dangerous young man who holds the object of his desire hostage, feeding her blood and trying in vain to gain her affection. One day she disappears, leaving the young man to face his own conscience.
    While rough and amateurish, Woo's ideas were rich and only in need of an outlet. Unlike his Cinema City peers Tsui Hark and Mak Kar, John never had the chance to attend University or take a formal film class. While Tsui Hark and Mak Kar were in America studying Woo managed to work his way up through the Cathay organization, from an extra to a stagehand, and ultimately to an assistant director at the Shaw Bros. studios, under a kindred spirit, director Cheng Cheh.
    Like Cheng Cheh, John had a ravenous appreciation for the nuance of "heng dai" (eternal brotherhood) within the wu sha pian. The complexity of social loyalties, with intricate codes of responsibility and confucian pecking order, lends itself to serious analysis. While unable to helm his own feature, Woo was witness to Cheng's bloody treatsies on heng dai and traditional wu sha pian, like SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON (1971) and BOXER FROM SHANTUNG (1972) - all with Cheng's own indelible takes (formed by his own generational perception) manifesting themselves on screen, and like Woo's future work - quite often there would be hardship and prices to pay in choosing to/not to walk the road of righteousness.
    After witnessing, first-hand, the ins and outs of pre, principal, and post-production, Woo's "film school of life," coupled with the love he had for his work, helped him concentrate and begin formulating his first, independently-produced feature, THE YOUNG DRAGONS (1973).
    With some networking he developed from his days at Cathay and up into the Shaw studios, Woo pooled together private investors, on-screen and off-screen talent, and a script. When post-production wrapped on THE YOUNG DRAGONS, upstart studio Golden Harvest were interested in aquizitioning independent productions to boost up their yearly rouster (as they only produced a handful of films themselves). Woo made the right film at the right time, and after a year and some retooling via Golden Harvest, THE YOUNG DRAGONS was released in 1975. While it was not a hit it did quite well, earning Woo a contract with Golden Harvest where he collaborated with popular television comedian Michael Hui Koon Man, on his first features GAMES GAMBLERS PLAY (1975) and THE PRIVATE EYES (1976). Woo was there to help Hui adjust to big scale film production, insuring he was able to shoot what Michael wanted and to make sure everything was on budget and on time. While there is no obvious Woo influence in the visual or aesthetic mix, Hui's influence on Woo would later become evident as he metamorphisized from a respected director of martial arts films to a sought after director of physical comedies.
     While at Golden Harvest Woo experimented with a Cantonese Opera (PRINCESS CHANG PING, 1976) and a wu sha pian in the vein of Cheng Cheh's masterwork, LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY (1978). Around this  time Woo was feeling frozen. While using his English moniker (Woo is an anglicization of "Wu," itself a Mandarinization of Ng) but a Chinese pseudonym, Woo did some "moonlighting" on independent productions like the anthology HELLO, LATE HOMECOMMERS (1978), and on pal Dean Shek Tien's Charlie Chaplin homage, LAUGHING TIME (1981) for Cinema City. While working for Shek and his Cinema City partners Raymond Wong Bak Ming and Mak Kar, Woo found kindred spirits with a love for cinema and eyes on broadening the constrictive local cinema with bigger, bolder, more experimental productions. Woo wandered back to Golden Harvest to helm the Josephine Siao Fong Fong vehicle PLAIN JANE TO THE RESCUE (1982), itself a continuation of Siao's popular "Lam Ah-Chun" character she created while at the Shaw studios.
     In the film, Woo cameos as himself, standing at the head of an unemployment line, declaring himself a "director." When asked what a director is, he responds (with heavenly white shafts of light and a halo over his head) "a god." The punch line (and perhaps conscious commentary on how he felt bout his work up until that time) has Ricky Hui Koon Ying commenting that he'd seen his films and that they were "laap saap." (Cantonese for stinking garbage)
      Woo was in a creative conundrum. Torn by his loyalty to Golden Harvest and his need to push himself out of the comedy genre, he took to late night drinking binges, often excuses to shake off stress, sometimes serving as the impetus for soul searching and brainstorming. One of Woo's drinking buddies was Tsui Hark, whom Woo had met through Dean Shek Tien, head of Cinema City and one-time supporting actor in Woo's first film, THE YOUNG DRAGONS. Together they lamented the state of the local industry, waxed nostalgic about their love of cinema and exchanged their most heartfelt ideas on films they would love to make.
     Just as Tsui Hark was about to release his first "epic," ZU, WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983), John was given the assignment of helming a war film called SUNSET WARRIOR. The film, shot on-location in Thailand, was a chance to do a contemporary action film that blended his notions of heng dai with many of his comic book, film, and literary influences. Character relationships within the film (shelved upon completion and later re-edited, re-scored, a few parts re-shot and re-titled HEROES SHED NO TEARS in 1986) share much in common with those in classic wu sha pian like "The Water Margin," while obvious visual nods are made to the "Kozure Okami" ("Sword Of Vengeance," aka "Lone Wolf & Cub") manga imported form Japan. Woo's visual panache is evident, even in the reconstructed project, which often renders the narrative -and performances from its stars  as blunt and incomplete. Woo disowned the picture and sat out the rest of his Golden Harvest contract by making films for other producers under a pseudonym, later packing up his family and belongings and moving to Taiwan where he served as one of the administrators at Cinema City's Taipei production office.
      While there, John oversaw the completion of films meant for the Taiwanese market (often joint co-productions with Long Shong Pictures), many of which were the type of comedies he wanted to get away from. Woo helmed two pictures while in Taiwan: a loose, over-the-top variation of Neil Simon's THE SUNSHINE BOYS, entitled THE TIME YOU NEED A FRIEND (1984), and the children's pre-"mo-lai-to"-esque comedy RUN TIGER RUN (1985). Tired and ready to call it a day, Woo conferred to his closest ally, Tsui Hark.
    As the story goes, it was another night of drinking and waxing philosophical, much like the ones Hark and John had while at Golden Harvest. What makes this supposed night different is that Tsui Hark encouraged John to act upon his idea of remaking an old wu sha pian known as THE COLORS OF A HERO (1968). With Tsui one of Cinema City's braintrust (alongside Sylvia Chang Ai Ja, Tsui's wife Nansun Shi, Mak Kar, Dean Shek Tien, Eric Tsang Chi Wai, Tommy Chow, and Raymond Wong Bak Ming), Woo took this as a positive sign and with Tsui attached to produce the film under his "Film Workshop" banner, Mak Kar gave John the green light to make one of the most influential Hong Kong films of the 1980s - A BETTER TOMORROW (1986).
     The film, an action-drama using the world of triads as a metaphor for the direction Hong Kong's old and new guard were heading (injected by a heavy dose of Heng-dai-tinged moral dilemmas), complete with a taut script by Woo, Leung Suk Wah, and Chan Hing Kai (who would later combine similar subtext in the another superb film, Gordon Chan Kar Seung and Dante Lam Chiu Yin's BEAST COPS - some 12 years later). The film broke all box office records for its time, reviving Woo's career, cementing Tsui Hark's Film Workshop as a premier spotlight for fresh talent and insured Chow Yun Fat a place in Asian Cinema history as "Mak-gor," the virtuous triad. The film also showcased former Shaw Bros. idol (and Cheng Cheh favorite) Ti Lung, elevating him above and beyond what many of  his 70s brethren were being pigeonholed (as "out of date" and "unfashionable"), as well as spring boarding  actor Waise Lee Chi Hung towards his sojourn as one of Hong Kong's finest (albeit underrated) character actors. Cinema City were raking in the dough as Chow, Tsui and Woo soaked in the praise.
         Woo evolved from abject poverty to become one of the island's most respected creative forces. A rebirth of the triad sub genre emerged (with seeds sewn in the early 1980s with the Mak Bros.' LONG ARM OF THE LAW and Kirk Wong Chi Keung's THE CLUB (1982 and 1983, respectively) and the local box office was never the same. Woo's experimentation with the editing and photography within his action scenes (inspired by the work of Akira Kurosawa and Sam Peckinpah)  inspired other directors to challenge  themselves, and the end result remains immeasurable. With such success Woo's battles had only begun.
    Having a taste of serious fame, intense critical praise, and having curbed his drinking binges, Woo was ready to move on. When old friend Dean Shek Tien asked Woo to helm a sequel to his breakthrough film, John was reticent. Looking back, it's not crazy to fathom that Woo could have been feeling another Golden Harvest experience coming. Once his comedies garnered good box office he was pretty much stuck making comedies. Woo's aspirations were looking elsewhere in his imagination but out of loyalty to Shek, Cinema City, and upon the insistence of Tsui Hark - Woo agreed to explore the world of triads and heng dai one more time in 1987's A BETTER TOMORROW II.
    Gone was a part of the heart and fresh feeling the original film embodied, with hard-core action and humor (sometimes unintentional) taking their place. Woo's heart was elsewhere, as his comments regarding the film as being "the worst film ever made," summing up his own feelings regarding the experience. It has been said that Woo lost control of the project during his usually guarded post production. Tsui Hark, renown for being a very timely and "hands on" producer (often helming second unit on Film Workshop productions when he wasn't making his own projects), was said to have interfered with Woo in the editing room and words were exchanged. The end result was a long period of bitterness and little personal contact. Woo disowned the film and Tsui ended up working to "salvage" what he thought the film ought to have been. Audiences were none the wiser, as A BETTER TOMORROW II did quite well at the box office. What survives is an incredibly entertaining (albeit it implausible) film rife with brutal set pieces and some inspired moments (Woo took the liberty of commenting on how some mis-guided youth in Hong Kong were taking to dressing like Mak-gor and their desire to join triads - Woo would later expand upon this with his work on the Cheng Cheh "benefit" film, JUST HEROES in 1989).
     Woo found himself frozen. Taking some time off he revisited the French cinema, with its crime noir at heart. Woo envisioned remaking Jean-Pierre Melville's LE SAMOURAI (1968), with Chow Yun Fat as its star. Trying to put his nightmarish experience on A BETTER TOMORROW II behind him, Woo approached Tsui Hark with the idea. Hark began critiquing the piece, wanting to do away with the jazz music, wanting to cast actors Woo did not have in mind, eventually he turned the project down as he felt there would be no interest within the local market. Woo put the idea on the back burner and pitched an inspired outline for a third "Better Tomorrow" picture. Instead of re-working the narrative history the first two films established, Woo wanted to explain the bond between Mak Gor (Chow Yun Fat) and Ho (Ti Lung), which had evolved through an experience in 1970s Vietnam. Hark flat out refused the idea - only to announce a year later that he would do his "own" version of A BETTER TOMORROW III. This served as the straw that broke the camel's back, as Woo and Hark stopped talking to each other altogether.
 It took a third party intervention to get the film off the ground.
    Sometime in the mid 1980s, Cinema City sold its back catalog of films and worked out a distribution deal with Golden Princess Amusements. This presented a stable financial backbone to work from when it acquired theaters throughout Asia, and helped to ensure they would have enough product to put on screens within its theater circuit. Cinema City closed its doors in 1989, with only a handful of films in post-production left to be released. Raymond Wong Bak Ming (one third of the CC ownership - with Mak Kar and Dean Shek the remainder) went on to establish Mandarin Films, while Mak Kar and Dean Shek formed the short-lived New Cinema City). Being under contract with Tsui's Film Workshop, Woo was in a sticky situation, as Film Workshop didn't have Cinema City to override its decisions. What Film Workshop did have was the second (in many) of its parents, Golden Princess Amusements - to override their decisions. If Golden Princess didn't like a project - they had final say, as most of the financing for Film Workshop's projects came form them. Being a contract player for Golden Princess (in a very sweet deal carved out in the late 1980s), Chow Yun Fat went straight to the head of Golden Princess' film production and told them that THE KILLER was the next project he wanted to be involved with. Convinced, Golden Princess gave Woo the green light. With Woo under contract to Film Workshop, Tsui Hark was brought aboard to "produce," but the distance between both men was apparent and Hark was rumored to have distanced himself from the production altogether. The film did quite well in Taiwan, and was a blockbuster world wide, but in Hong Kong it didn't make much of a profit - in part because the island was caught up in the horrific wake of the Tienamen massacre.
       The break up of John Woo and Tsui Hark's partnership brought about unfortunate changes. Film Workshop was ready to jump ship from Golden Princess' film production wing (itself winding down, only to close its doors in 1994), over to Golden Harvest, with a few productions left between Golden Princess and Film Workshop. Woo had left Film Workshop in a quiet fashion, bringing its most trusted production manager, Terence Chang Ka Chun with him. With one fruitful friendship lost and another gained, Woo set about making the other film he had serious passion about - his proposed prequel to ABETTER TOMORROW.
    Because the franchise's ownership was part property of Film Workshop, part property of Cinema City, and thus part property of Golden Princess, and with Tsui Hark's mild reception with his A BETTER TOMORROW III, Woo restructured his semi autobiographical narrative into one of his most personal films, BULLET IN THE HEAD. Funded almost entirely with his own money, Woo crafted an amazing, heartfelt moral parable. While action-packed and stylish, gone was the glorified veneer A BETTER TOMORROW had, and in its place a pessimism nurtured by his own personal struggles - and the political struggles revolving around Hong Kong's bigger brother, Mainland China. the film garnered great international praise, but sank in Hong Kong, where it was cut for time and suffered from a bit of an identity crisis. Woo shelved his original ending after a week of screenings and re-released the film with an action-packed alternate ending in hopes of boosting box office. It didn't. Some viewers reacted negatively to its direct allusions to the Tienamen massacre. A longer cut, complete with the action-packed ending, was released in Taiwan to great praise. (Many versions of this film exist. Click here to read more about them.)
     With the local reaction being adverse to BULLET IN THE HEAD and his own investments in the hole, Woo wanted to tackle something lighter. With the help of Terence Chang and Chow Yun Fat, Golden Princess green lighted the Lunar New Year comedy ONCE A THIEF. The film abandoned any serious notions it could have and combined light action pieces with moments of situation comedy (and a few moments of outright physical comedy like those Woo had perfected while at Golden Harvest). While no blockbuster, the box office receipts were good enough for Woo and Chang to return to full fledged action. While helming HARD-BOILED (1992), John was finalizing his decision to go to Hollywood. Having fielded meetings and offers - and secured an agent named Chris Godsick, Woo signed on to helm an action film at Universal Studios, with Terence Chang attached to produce.
    HARD-BOILED packed houses eager to see 127 minutes of hard core action. At times brutal, the film kept an energy and intensity that had audiences across the globe wanting more. While not the most successful film of 1992, HARD-BOILED served as Woo's final Hong Kong film (as a director). He did not abandon his roots though, producing Wai Kai Fai's 1994 western PEACE HOTEL (co-written by and starring Chow Yun Fat, in one of his final Hong Kong productions), and his former assistant director, Patrick Leung Pak Kin's SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (1996).
   After his less-than-enjoyable experience on his  American debut (HARD TARGET, 1993), Woo set up shop with Terence Chang and his former agent, Chris Godsick, to form WGC Productions, with 1994's BROKEN ARROW (which was #1 upon release in America, only to be dethroned within a month by Stanley Tong Kwai Lai's Jackie Chan vehicle RUMBLE IN THE BRONX) it's first production. Woo went through a few projects that never made it to fruition (One of which was to be King Hu's first international production, and epic drama entitled THE BATTLE OF ONO. The film was to star Chow Yun Fat. King Hu died in Los Angeles, one week before principle photography was to commence), with 1996's FACE/OFF his first bonefide (as in he had a considerable amount of creative control over the project) Hollywood success.
     Woo is a man of many talents. Aside form being an amateur chef he has lent his name to two North American debuts, Kirk Wong Chi Keung's THE BIG HIT, and the Chow Yun Fat misfire, THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS, as well as having produced the short-lived international television series ONCE A THIEF (Woo directed the television pilot), and BLACK JACK (Woo also directed the pilot). Not one to rest on his laurels, John helmed a pair of commercials for Nike that ran during the 1998 Super bowl. Woo remains active in Hollywood.
  - Darryl Pestilence

Selected works by John Woo:
(Click on the title for a review)
THE YOUNG DRAGONS
THE DRAGON TAMERS
COUNTDOWN IN KUNG FU
PRINCESS CHANG PING
MONEY CRAZY
FOLLOW THE STAR
LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY
FROM RICHES TO RAGS
LAUGHING TIME
TO HELL WITH THE DEVIL
PLAIN JANE TO THE RESCUE
HEROES SHED NO TEARS
THE TIME YOU NEED A FRIEND
RUN, TIGER, RUN
A BETTER TOMORROW
A BETTER TOMORROW II
THE KILLER
JUST HEROES
BULLET IN THE HEAD
ONCE A THIEF
HARD-BOILED
HARD TARGET
BROKEN ARROW
FACE/OFF

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