User:FrostFairBlade/sandbox/John Woo

John Woo Yu-Sen (born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly influential figure in the action film genre. He is a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun fu genre in Hong Kong action cinema, before working in Hollywood films. He is known for his highly chaotic "bullet ballet" action sequences, stylized imagery, Mexican standoffs, frequent use of slow motion and allusions to wuxia, film noir and Western cinema.

Considered one of the major figures of Hong Kong cinema, Woo has directed several notable action films including A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), Hard Boiled (1992) and Red Cliff (2008/2009). His Hollywood films include Hard Target (1993), Broken Arrow (1996), Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible 2 (2000). He also created the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. He is the founder and chairman of the production company Lion Rock Productions.

Woo is a winner of the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing, as well as a Golden Horse Award, an Asia Pacific Screen Award and a Saturn Award.

Early life
Woo was born Wu Yu-sen in Guangzhou, China in late October 1946. His father, Wu Chuk-wen, was a former high school history teacher and second secretary to a general. His mother, Liu Mei-ying, was a housewife. Woo's grandfather was a wealthy landlord in Guangxi, and Woo's father was the youngest of nine children. Woo's father sided with the National Revolutionary Army during World War II. Woo is the eldest child and has a brother and a sister.

At the age of three, Woo suffered from a spinal infection, which required a tissue transplant from his right leg to his back. This resulted in difficulties with walking until Woo was eight years old, and his right leg became permanently shorter than his left. After the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland, Woo's family moved to Hong Kong in 1951, settling in the shanty towns of Shek Kip Mei. When Woo was five, his father developed tuberculosis. To make ends meet, his mother took up various manual labour jobs. The Woos faced further hardship when they lost everything—including their identity papers—in the Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953. This forced them to live on the streets for a year before they could get temporary housing. Woo's family were devout Lutherans, and with the help of the church, they found an American family who sponsored Woo's education. As he was already nine years old, his mother asked him to report his birth year as 1948 so that he could attend Heep Woh Primary School as a seven-year-old (his passport lists his birth date as 22 September, 1948). To make it easier for his teachers at Heep Woh to pronounce his name, Woo decided to go by the English name John, inspired by John the Baptist.

Despite the church's support, Woo had a challenging, impoverished childhood. He witnessed violence and crime on a daily basis, including living through the 1967 Hong Kong riots, and was frequently attacked by street gangs. As a shy, reticent child passionate about painting and music, Woo found solace in both the church and the local cinema, where he and his mother would watch foreign films together. While Woo liked Westerns and gangster films, he especially loved the escapist fantasies of American musicals like The Wizard of Oz (1939), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and West Side Story (1961). After completing primary school and attending Heep Woh Secondary School, Woo began working as a extra, playing various background roles for fun. He would also begin broadening his cinematic knowledge, developing an enjoyment of Mandarin-language films (Patrick Lung, King Hu, and Chang Cheh), Japanese film (Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa, and Teruo Ishii), and European cinema (Jean-Pierre Melville, François Truffaut, and Federico Fellini). Initially considering a career as a minister, he was encouraged by the church to pursue his passion for the arts. By the time he enrolled in Matteo Ricci College, Woo would frequently skip class to self-study filmmaking. He ultimately abandoned his education at age 16 when his father died. Financial difficulties made it impossible for his mother to enroll him in formal filmmaking studies. Instead, Woo chose to educate himself informally by immersing himself in both local and foreign cinema, while also resorting to stealing books on film theory from the local bookstore and library. He got a job at the Chinese Student Weekly, a popular cultural youth newspaper in Hong Kong, and at the age of 19 became involved with the newspaper's informal theatre company. Through this experience, Woo made friends with other film enthusiasts, who assisted him with making Super 8 and 16 mm short experimental films. Some of these early works included The Evil One (1968), Secret Killer (1968), Learning by Doing (1969), and Accidentally (1969). Woo also wrote and produced a short film directed by Sek Kei called Dead Knot (, 1970).

1969–1979: Career beginnings in Hong Kong
Woo began his film career in 1969 working as a script supervisor for Cathay, whose open-minded production manager hired him and many of his peers. He got a chance to be an assistant director for Little Apple (, 1970), a film co-directed by Cheung Sum and Wong Ping. When Cathay went out of business shortly after, Woo managed to befriend Taiwanese screenwriter Chiu Kang-Chien. Through Chiu's help, Woo was hired at Shaw Brothers Studio in 1971, where he worked as an assistant to the prolific Chang Cheh. He assisted Chang with The Water Margin (1972), Boxer from Shantung (1972), Four Riders (1972) and The Blood Brothers (1973). Woo cites Chang as a major influence on his work, and credits the director for showing him not just how to shoot action scenes, but also how to effectively collaborate with actors on set. He recalled that his rapid ascent to assistant director was looked down on by the older incumbent directors, who treated his youth and intellectualism with disdain. Woo felt the pressure of having to relay bad news like re-shooting scenes, and decided to hand in his resignation to Chang. He then joined an independent film company, where he spent time as an assistant director and log keeper alongside Yuen Woo-ping.

In 1973, a friend of Woo's created a small production company and invited him to co-direct a film. This marked Woo's directorial debut with Farewell Buddy, in which he hired a young Jackie Chan to design its fight choreography. However, the movie was initially shelved for being too violent. Hong Kong censors were worried that a scene where the antagonist uses a glove covered in nails and razor blades as a weapon would inspire copycats. Despite this, the film attracted interest from Golden Harvest, who saw potential in Woo and signed him to a three-year contract. The studio gave Woo the budget to re-shoot some of the footage, and released Farewell Buddy two years later under the new title The Young Dragons (, 1975). At Golden Harvest, Woo would be tasked with helping Michael Hui, a popular television comedian, direct Games Gamblers Play (1974). The film was a massive box office success, earning $6,251,633 HKD during its theatrical run. He then directed The Dragon Tamers (1975) and Hand of Death (1976), two low-budget movies similar to The Young Dragons that were filmed in South Korea. The Dragon Tamers, a joint production with a Korean company, was based on the Japanese television series Sugata Sanshirō. In Hand of Death, Tan Tao-liang starred as a Shaolin disciple tasked with stopping a killer intent on destroying the Shaolin temples. It featured Jackie Chan in a co-starring role, with fight choreography by Sammo Hung, but did not perform well with critics nor the box office.

Following the release of Hand of Death, Woo directed Princess Chang Ping (, 1976). This film, starring Loong Kim-sang and Mui Suet-si, was a remake of Tragedy of the Emperor's Daughter (1959), which itself was based on the Cantonese opera The Flower Princess. Throughout its production, Woo faced pressure from others in the film industry, who doubted that a young action film director could manage a Cantonese opera film. However, Princess Chang Ping was a commercial and critical success, elevating Woo's directorial status. He then returned to assist Michael Hui as a planning producer on Hui's next film, The Private Eyes (1976). Curious if the young director could handle a comedic film of his own, Golden Harvest asked Woo to direct his first comedy, Money Crazy (, 1977). This movie, starring Ricky Hui and Richard Ng, paid homage to Western comedians like Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, and Charlie Chaplin. Despite a minimal budget and a script that was hastily written in two weeks, Money Crazy became a box office hit, earning Woo a reputation as a comedy director. Writing for the South China Morning Post, film critic Mel Tobias remarked, "The B-grade product surprisingly turned out to be the biggest summer hit this year."

After handling production design for another Hui brothers vehicle called The Contract (1978), and contributing a segment to the anthology film Hello, Late Homecomers (, 1978), Woo followed up with another comedic movie called Follow the Star (1978). This film featured Rowena Cortes as a teenage singer being taken care of by an older character played by Roy Chiao. Woo disliked the project, calling it "cartoonish" and "way too over the top". He grew increasingly intrigued by the idea of directing a passion project inspired by French New Wave films like Le Samouraï, but Golden Harvest insisted that he stick to just comedy and action. Woo recalled that this anger over his studio assignments, as well as his frustration with societal problems, began to seep into his comedies. He stated, "I wanted to make movies with a lot of meaning. But those comedies were pretty much like cartoons. I was a rebel at the time, so I put that sort of anger and sadness into my comedy. In my comedies, I tried to make people cry, so it didn't work."

Woo's next film, From Riches to Rags (1980), reunited him with Ricky Hui. This movie starred Hui as a newly-rich millionaire who tries to stop his own hired killer from assassinating him after realizing his earlier cancer diagnosis was a mistake. Despite his growing frustration with his limited creative control, Woo cherished the film since the studio allowed him to explore social issues like wealth inequality and greed. In a retrospective review, Paul Fonoroff declared it "an uneven mixture of silly gags and eccentric action displaying a nascent hint of the unique stylistic sense that in time would come to define Woo." When Golden Harvest asked him to direct an action film next, Woo suggested a police drama, with a script already written by a friend of his. However, the studio refused, and Woo would instead direct Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979), a wuxia movie filmed after From Riches to Rags but released earlier. Although disappointed with Golden Harvest's decision, Woo used the opportunity to pay tribute to classic swordplay films, incorporating elements of Akira Kurosawa's style with Chang Cheh's themes of loyalty and honour. However, Woo had to make several concessions, including adding comedic elements and anachronistically modern dialogue. While Last Hurrah for Chivalry did not perform well at the box office, it remains notable for being an early look at the themes and style that Woo would refine and popularize later in his career.

1980–1985: Struggles with directing comedy
Over the next few years, Woo would feel conflicted over being increasingly pigeonholed as a comedy director. Despite his desire to leave Golden Harvest, he still had another three years left on his contract. Author Stephen Teo noted that Woo's focus on "largely inane comedies" came during a time when many of his peers had been pushing creative boundaries as part of the Hong Kong New Wave. After spending a couple of months in Los Angeles with his family, he was enticed by fledgling studio Cinema City to come work for them. To help Cinema City with its initial funding, Woo directed their first production, Laughing Times (1980), an homage to Charlie Chaplin starring studio co-founder Dean Shek. However, Woo's preexisting contract with Golden Harvest required him to be credited under an alias. This pseudonym, Wu Shuang-fei, combined his surname with the middle names of his two daughters. Laughing Times was a success at the Hong Kong box office, earning $5.19 million HKD and becoming the fourth-highest grossing film in 1980. In his review, Mel Tobias wrote that "Woo knows how to bring about humour, flair and warmth, and Keystone Cops capers at the right moment".

Upon returning to Golden Harvest, Woo directed To Hell With the Devil (, 1981), featuring Ricky Hui as a struggling singer who makes a deal with the Devil for fame. Woo drew inspiration from his own personal hatred of his contract, and featured many references to other films like Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Exorcist (1973). The film made $4.46 million HKD. Woo would go on to direct Plain Jane to the Rescue (, 1982), the third installment in a series of films centred around the comedic character Lam Ah Chun, portrayed by Josephine Siao. At the box office, the movie made $4.61 million HKD. Desperate to finish his contract with Golden Harvest, in 1982 Woo would start working on Sunset Warrior, a war film where a retired soldier (played by Eddy Ko) is hired to capture a rogue colonel (Lam Ching-ying) turned drug kingpin in the Golden Triangle. Woo felt uncomfortable with the excessive violence and sexual content in the original script, prompting him to make alterations. Filmed on location in Thailand on a minimal budget, Woo had the challenge of working with a multinational cast and crew who did not speak each others' languages. Golden Harvest was dissatisfied with the finished product, and when Woo refused to compromise on the film's focus on relationships and sombre conclusion, the film sat unreleased for years.

In 1983, Woo finally got to leave Golden Harvest for Cinema City. According to Woo, the new studio promised him the opportunity to direct the crime drama that he had been dreaming of. However, his hope quickly turned into frustration, as Cinema City sent him away to manage its Taiwan office instead. Away from home and in need of money, a dejected Woo made two more critically panned comedy films. The first movie, The Time You Need a Friend (, 1984), was loosely inspired by Neil Simon's play The Sunshine Boys. It featured Sun Yueh and David Tao as two aging comedians who slowly mend their friendship before their televised reunion at a telethon. Run, Tiger, Run (1985) was about a street urchin, played by Bin Bin who tries to adapt to the life his rich grandparents have. Woo additionally produced two Taiwanese films in 1985 for Cinema City: Super Citizen directed by Wan Jen, and Love, Lone Flower  directed by Lin Ching-Chieh. By this point, Woo was depressed about his career prospects and turned to heavy drinking. According to the director, his bosses at Cinema City criticized him for wanting to direct a crime drama instead of a comedy, claiming that he was out-of-touch with what was popular amongst audiences and suggesting that he study the current trends.

1986–1992: Heroic bloodshed, breakthrough and international recognition
Woo's fortunes changed when filmmaker Tsui Hark asked if he would like to work on a crime drama for his production company Film Workshop. Grateful for the opportunity, Woo returned to Hong Kong in 1985 to write and direct A Better Tomorrow (1986), a gangster film about a Triad member torn between seeking revenge on his traitorous colleague and reconciling with his police officer brother. Woo would loosely base the movie on Patrick Lung's The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), transplanting the gallant heroes from wuxia films into a contemporary setting and adapting dialogue from his personal experiences. While Cinema City agreed to finance the film, casting Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, and Chow Yun-fat in the lead roles, the studio gave it minimal promotion out of concern that it would under-perform at the box office. However, A Better Tomorrow opened to wildly positive audience reception, becoming the number-one film and earning over $34.5 million HKD during its unusually long theatrical run of 61 days. Hong Kong critics praised the film for being "explosive but sentimental" and "full of masculinity". For a while, young men in Hong Kong emulated Chow's character, Mark, by wearing sunglasses and long coats despite Hong Kong's tropical climate. It was nominated for eleven categories at the 6th Hong Kong Film Awards, winning two for Best Film and Best Actor for Chow. At the 23rd Golden Horse Awards, it picked up nine additional nominations, winning four for Best Director, Best Leading Actor, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound Recording. A Better Tomorrow is credited as the originator of the "gun fu" fighting style in film, and it inspired a wave of contemporary action movies with similar gunfights and themes, kick-starting the heroic bloodshed film genre. Woo and Chow's popularity would skyrocket following the film, and Chow would continue to appear in many of Woo's films in the future. To capitalize on Woo's name, Golden Harvest released a heavily edited version of Sunset Warrior called Heroes Shed No Tears (1986), inserting additional scenes not shot by the director. This made only $2.8 million HKD at the box office. Woo disowns this film, stating in a 2004 interview that he has never watched the theatrical cut.

Woo was hesitant to make a sequel to A Better Tomorrow; he had instead written a prequel about Mark's life in Hong Kong and Vietnam. However, he reluctantly agreed to direct A Better Tomorrow II (1987) to financially help Cinema City co-founder Dean Shek, who had fallen on hard times and had left for the United States. Despite Chow's character being killed off in the first film, the actor was brought back to play Mark's twin brother Ken. Woo wanted the film's story to focus on the two brothers, and fought with Tsui over how important Shek's character would be to the plot. Forced by Cinema City to make significant cuts in under a week in order to make the release date, Woo had to split the editing workload between him, Tsui and another editor without seeing what the finished product would look like. This caused significant friction when Woo discovered that Tsui had edited out many of Woo's favourite scenes to give Shek's character more screen time. A Better Tomorrow II was the sixth-highest grossing movie that year, earning $23 million HKD at the box office. In a retrospective review, Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle noted its haphazard story, stating, "The whole thing feels like a rush job, and it shows in the less-than-brilliant set pieces that crop up from time to time." The film received two nominations at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards: Best Actor (Cheung) and Best Action Choreography (Ching Siu-tung).

Woo next wrote and directed The Killer (1989), a crime movie about a contract killer who takes one last assassination job to help a nightclub singer he accidentally blinded. This concept was initially rejected by Tsui, who thought that basing the story around a hitman was not commercially viable. Chow helped rescue its production by asking Golden Princess, the company he was under contract with, to partially finance the film. Starring Chow, Danny Lee, and Sally Yeh, The Killer was a moderate success locally, earning $18.2 million HKD and reaching ninth place at the Hong Kong box office. Nevertheless, the film attracted considerable attention abroad after several film festival screenings, helping to establish Woo as a talented action director to a Western audience. Many English-language reviewers spoke favourably of its over-the-top, kinetic action sequences,   with The New York Times ' Stephen Holden declaring that "the scenes of gore and destruction are even more spectacular than Hong Kong's fog-shrouded skyline." It was also influential on hip hop music, with Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon sampling snippets of the film's dialogue for his debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995). At the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards, it was nominated for six awards, winning two for Best Director and Best Editing (Fan Kung-wing, ).

Woo proceeded to collaborate on Just Heroes (1989), a charity project he co-directed with Wu Ma to help raise money for a now-destitute Chang Cheh. This film served as a tribute to Chang, incorporating actors who had previously worked with him. Just Heroes only made $7.9 million HKD, securing the 49th spot at the Hong Kong box office that year. Fed up with his fractured partnership with Tsui, Woo decided to cut ties with the producer, forming his own eponymous production house called John Woo Production Company. This namesake studio would produce only one film: Bullet in the Head (1990), a wartime epic based on the prequel idea for A Better Tomorrow he had pitched to Tsui. This project held deep personal meaning for Woo. Drawing from his own impoverished childhood to create the film's first half, he would use the backdrop of the 1967 Hong Kong riots and the Vietnam War to allude to Hong Kong's anxieties over the Tiananmen Square massacre and the upcoming 1997 handover. Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Jacky Cheung, and Waise Lee as three childhood friends whose relationship gets torn apart by greed, Bullet in the Head was a box-office bomb, earning only $8.5 million HKD against its $28 million HKD budget. It also fared poorly with critics. However, the film was far better received outside of Hong Kong. Vogue 's longtime film critic John Powers declared it "far richer and more moving than Deer Hunter—to which it's an answer—this epic of friendship and war in the Saigon of the 1960s has Woo's trademark delirious intensity. Of all his films this one has the greatest sweep and passion." Nominated in four categories at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards, Woo won the award for Best Editing.

In 1990, Woo formed another production company, Milestone Pictures, with producers Terence Chang and Linda Kuk. Saddened by the poor reception of Bullet in the Head, he decided to return to a more commercially-appealing premise with Once a Thief (1991). The film, a heist comedy starring Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung, and Cherie Chung as three art thieves entangled with their crooked mentor, was shot in Nice and Hong Kong without a script. Despite it turning a profit by earning over $33.3 million HKD at the box office, Woo had mixed feelings about the movie, as he felt it was nonsensical at times due to the lack of proper planning. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times enjoyed the film's juxtaposition of screwball comedy and action, declaring that it "may just be the dizziest yet endearing Hong Kong caper since Peking Opera Blues." Once a Thief was nominated at the 11th Hong Kong Film Awards in four different categories: Best Film, Best Director (Woo), Best Actor (Chow), and Best Editing (David Wu).

By this time, Woo had begun to receive calls from Hollywood producers about the possibility of working on an American production. He had already been signed to William Morris Agency, and was being represented in the United States by talent agent Christopher Godsick. However, Woo would first wrap up filming Hard Boiled (1992), an action thriller reuniting him with both Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Hard Boiled stemmed from Woo's anger at the uptick in violent crime in Hong Kong at the time; he wanted to make a film about justice featuring a virtuous hero. Woo originally envisioned the movie to be about a psychopath who would poison baby formula, but scrapped the idea after receiving negative feedback from the American producers in contact with him. Instead, the movie would be written around Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, a maverick police officer played by Chow who would gradually befriend an undercover cop (Leung) in order to take down a notorious gangster (played by Anthony Wong). Featuring an inventive gunfight sequence shot as one long take of nearly three minutes, Hard Boiled was released to positive domestic reception. Sight and Sound 's Tony Rayns called it "Woo's most relaxed and confident film so far, and in many ways a terrific achievement." He noted that while the plot was ordinary, the film's "details and incidentals are gleefully idiosyncratic and the visual style is a fine mix of bluesy realism and jazzy kinetics." Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle declared it "nirvana for seekers of action, and it rarely gets any better than this." At the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards, Woo and David Wu won for Best Editing; Leung was nominated for Best Supporting Male Actor.


 * A Better Tomorrow (1986)
 * Woo's fortunes turned around when Tsui Hark, a filmmaker friend whom Woo had recommended to Cinema City, reached out to see if he was interested in writing and directing a film for Film Workshop, his newfound production company
 * Woo had befriended Tsui as early as 1979, and had cast him in an acting role in Run, Tiger, Run
 * Grateful for the chance to make his passion project, Woo returned to Hong Kong in 1985 to work on A Better Tomorrow (1986), a gangster film about a Triad member torn between reconciliation with his police officer brother, and seeking revenge on his traitorous associate
 * Woo would loosely base the film on Patrick Lung's The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967), transplanting the gallant heroes from wuxia films into a modern context and adapting dialogue from his personal experiences
 * A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
 * Following the original film's success
 * Woo had written a prequel about Mark's life in Hong Kong and Vietnam
 * Woo said he agreed to film a sequel to help out one of the Cinema City co-founders: "Dean Shek [...] was having a lot of money problems at the time and, since we were all friends, we agreed to make A Better Tomorrow II, giving him a big part, to help him out."
 * Author Kenneth E. Hall asserts that Tsui had written the script loosely based off of Shek's poor treatment by his co-founders
 * Despite Chow's character being killed off in the first film, the actor was brought back to play Mark's twin brother, Ken
 * The original cut was two hours and forty minutes long; Woo was forced to trim over a hour of footage, splitting the workload between him, Tsui and another editor without seeing what the finished cut would look like
 * This caused friction between Woo and Tsui, as Woo discovered after editing that the focus had shifted from the two brothers to Dean Shek's character
 * Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle: "The whole thing feels like a rush job, and it shows in the less-than-brilliant set pieces that crop up from time to time."
 * The film was nominated for two awards at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards: Best Actor (Cheung) and Best Action Choreography (Ching Siu-tung)
 * The Killer (1989)
 * For his next project, Woo pitched the idea of a film about a hitman to Tsui, who rejected it because he thought the concept was not commercially viable
 * According to producer Terence Chang, Tsui felt that Woo had "screwed up" A Better Tomorrow II, and had asked Chang to fire the director; when Chang refused to, Tsui began rejecting Woo's movie ideas
 * The Killer (1989) starred Chow as a contract killer named Jeff, who takes one last assassination job to help a nightclub singer (Sally Yeh) he accidentally blinded in a previous mission
 * Jeff would be pursued by maverick police officer Li (played by Danny Lee)
 * It was inspired by Teruo Ishii's An Outlaw
 * The Killer attracted considerable praise in film festivals abroad, helping to establish Woo to a Western audience
 * Woo himself believed The Killer to be one of his best films: "The Killer is a nearly complete movie to me. I am never 100% satisfied. However, the technical experiments worked pretty well and helped me to establish my style. [...] It was one movie where I had total creative freedom."
 * At the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards, it was nominated for six awards, winning two for Best Director and Best Editing (Fan Kung-wing, )
 * Just Heroes (1989)
 * Co-directed with Wu Ma
 * Bullet in the Head (1990)
 * Woo shot Bullet in the Head (1990) next
 * Woo spent his own money on the project
 * The first half of the film was largely autobiographical and drawn from Woo's impoverished childhood
 * Overall, Woo used the backdrop of the 1967 Hong Kong riots and the Vietnam War to allude to the Tiananmen Square massacre the previous year
 * The distributor, Golden Princess, worried that the original three-hour-long cut was too long, and asked him to re-edit the film
 * At the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards, it was nominated in four categories, with Woo winning an award for Best Film Editing
 * In 1990, Woo formed another production company called Milestone Pictures with producers Terence Chang and Linda Kuk.
 * Once a Thief (1991)
 * Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times liked the balance of comedy with action along with the charismatic performances of the lead actors, stating that "Once a Thief may just be the dizziest yet endearing Hong Kong caper since Peking Opera Blues."
 * At the 11th Hong Kong Film Awards, it was nominated in four categories: Best Film, Best Director (Woo), Best Actor (Chow), and Best Editing (David Wu)
 * Had a brief cameo as a priest in the Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam co-directed film Twin Dragons (1992)
 * Hard Boiled (1992)
 * The creation of Hard Boiled was spurred by Woo's anger at the increase in violent crime in Hong Kong at the time; he wanted to make a film about justice featuring a virtuous hero
 * Originally, the film was about a psychopath who would poison babies' milk powder; this was changed when producer Terence Chang, who had been talking with American producers about giving Hollywood directorial work to Woo, received negative feedback from them about babies being killed
 * Tony Rayns of Sight and Sound called it "Woo's most relaxed and confident film so far, and in many ways a terrific achievement"; while he noted that the plot was ordinary, the film's "details and incidentals are gleefully idiosyncratic and the visual style is a fine mix of bluesy realism and jazzy kinetics."
 * Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times praised the movie's "dazzling, energetic action sequences"
 * Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle declared the film "nirvana for seekers of action, and it rarely gets any better than this."
 * At the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards, Woo and David Wu won for Best Editing; Tony Leung was nominated for Best Supporting Male Actor
 * In 1992, Milestone Pictures closed

1993–2000: Move to the United States and international success
After finishing Hard Boiled and mulling over scripts that American producers had been sending him, Woo was visited by Universal Pictures producer James Jacks, writer Chuck Pfarrer and action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. The three successfully convinced him to try working in Hollywood. Woo felt constrained by the smaller film industry in Hong Kong, and wanted to both expand his horizons and have a better work-life balance in America. In 1992, he closed Milestone Pictures and moved to Los Angeles. After reviewing the scripts he had available, Woo decided to make Hard Target (1993), with a story written by Pfarrer inspired by "The Most Dangerous Game". In Hard Target, Van Damme portrayed an unemployed seaman who uncovers a human hunting scheme while helping a woman search for her missing father. This film would be credited as the first Hollywood film directed by an Asian director. With Hard Target, Woo wanted to make a modernized Western movie. However, he struggled with the layers of bureaucracy in the Hollywood system. Universal was also worried about putting a director with a limited grasp of English on such a large project, and hired filmmaker Sam Raimi to take over directing if Woo wasn't capable. Woo was forced to re-edit the film after American test audiences reacted negatively to the slow-motion and freeze-frame style he had honed in Hong Kong. He also had to make dozens of additional cuts to secure the R rating that Universal wanted, submitting the film to Motion Picture Association ratings board seven times before finally succeeding.

Following Hard Target, Woo, Chang, and Godsick created an American production company called WCG Entertainment in 1994, named after their surnames. After a brief stint with Cinergi Pictures, it was announced in November of that year that he signed a two-year production deal with 20th Century Fox, with a one-year option to renew. Woo then entered a two-and-a-half year period of limbo. Throughout 1995, he had instead been working on two projects that were ultimately canceled. One was Shadow War with Universal, and Tears of the Sun with 20th Century Fox. Woo had also been considered a potential candidate to direct the next James Bond film, GoldenEye (1995), but ultimately turned it down. 20th Century Fox reached out to Woo with an already-greenlit project, Broken Arrow (1996), which Woo accepted. Woo recalled, "It was sure easier to grab Broken Arrow than spend a couple of years developing something. And it was also a movie that would give me some experience with special effects." Broken Arrow depicts the theft of two nuclear missiles by a rogue United States Air Force pilot (John Travolta) as he is pursued by his former co-pilot (Christian Slater) and a park ranger (Samantha Mathis). Woo found directing the movie an "unpleasant experience", recalling instances of meddling from the studio by both an executive as well as a line producer. Janet Maslin of The New York Times believed that even though Woo's storytelling abilities were "at the level of cartoonish jousting", the visual effects, Travolta's performance, and action sequences "[marked] a big step forward" for the director. Conversely, Desson Howe of The Washington Post lambasted the film for its inability to translate the kinetic action of Woo's Hong Kong movies to Hollywood. Opinions on Travolta were mixed: Roger Ebert thought he was miscast, while Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the decision to cast Travolta "inspired", and appreciated Woo's directorial touches throughout the film.

Woo's next work was Once a Thief (1996), a television film remake of his 1991 movie that he had been asked to do a couple of years prior. Curious about trying something new, Woo teamed up with Alliance Communications to make the pilot for Fox Broadcasting Company. This version featured Sandrine Holt, Michael Wong, and Ivan Sergei as the trio of thieves, with Nicholas Lea cast as a former police officer who becomes an additional love interest for Holt's character. Armed with a budget of around $2 million, Woo shot the pilot in 26 days, a grueling pace involving 14-to-18-hour work days. Writing for Variety, reviewer Carole Horst called the project "an entertaining telepic that can best be described as Woo Lite." John J. O'Connor of The New York Times enjoyed the action scenes, but panned the acting by describing the cast as "pretty adornments". While Fox declined to turn Once a Thief into a full-fledged series, The Movie Channel bought the pilot two years later, airing a "director's cut" version that restored unseen footage cut from the initial broadcast on Fox.

By as early as 1997, Woo and Chang formed a new production company, calling it Lion Rock Productions in reference to their Hong Kong origins and steady friendship. Woo would follow up by directing Face/Off (1997), a science fiction action film about two men on opposite sides of the law who swap identities through facial transplant surgery. Woo had first been offered the film's script in 1992 by Warner Bros. when he first came to America. Despite being intrigued by the dramatic premise of having two characters swap lives, he turned it down because he was disinterested in science fiction. After rejecting it a second time after Paramount bought the rights, he ultimately accepted the job on condition that most of the movie's science fiction elements would be removed. Paramount let Woo direct without interference, with chairman Sherry Lansing insisting that studio executives refrain from giving him notes to ensure Woo could impose his style on the project. Starring John Travolta as FBI agent Sean Archer and Nicolas Cage as terrorist Castor Troy, Face/Off was a box office success, earning $245 million on a budget of $80 million. While Desson Howe of The Washington Post thought the movie was "the maddest, most enjoyable blockbuster of the summer", he also believed that the film was "one of the strangest stories to ever get the green light at a Hollywood studio." Roger Ebert praised the "terrific counterpoint" of having Travolta and Cage play each other, stating that "you find yourself reinterpreting every scene as you realize the 'other' character is 'really' playing it." Time ultimately listed it sixth on their list of the best films of 1997.

While Fox passed up the opportunity to continue with the Once a Thief pilot, Canadian broadcaster CTV Television Network opted to pay for the broadcast rights, enabling Woo to turn the film into a television series. Alliance decided to spend approximately $1.3 million an episode to deliver a season of 22 episodes. Woo served as executive producer for the series, with many of his frequent collaborators, such as cinematographer Bill Wong and editor David Wu, becoming involved in the project. Compared to the television film, the series had less violence and more comedic elements. Once a Thief debuted on 15 September 2007 on CTV, but was put on temporary hiatus by the winter of that year. It resumed in January 1998 with 13 more episodes, ultimately airing its last episode on 2 May 1998 as it was canceled. It eventually wound up in syndication on American television by 2002. At the 12th Gemini Awards, Woo was nominated for Best Direction in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series. The series garnered even more accolades at the 13th Gemini Awards, earning three more nominations and having Bert Kish win Best Picture Editing in a Dramatic Program or Series for his work on the episode "Rave On".

Woo would collaborate with Alliance once more on another two-hour television movie pilot called Blackjack (1998). This starred Dolph Lundgren as Jack Devlin, a bodyguard with a phobia of the colour white who must protect a model from being murdered by her ex-husband. The pilot aired on USA Network to mixed reviews. Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of B+, noting that while it paled in comparison to Hard Boiled and Face/Off, it was better than most of the programming on USA Network. Michael Costello of AllMovie outright panned the movie, calling it a "very sorry excuse of a John Woo film" and criticising the acting, dialogue, staging, and set design. A mixed review by TV Guide stated that while the film had some solid action scenes, it was "sabotaged by lackluster acting, thin characterization, and a derivative story line." USA Network ultimately chose to not pick it up as a series.

In January 1998, it was announced that Woo signed a two-year, first-look production deal with Sony subsidiary TriStar Pictures. He also signed a separate contract with A Band Apart the following month to make television commercials. Woo filmed his first commercial that month, working with Nike to advertise their Mercurial football shoe with the Brazilian national football team. During this time, he also helped executive produce Kirk Wong's film The Big Hit (1998). Variety reported in May 1999 that Newmarket Capital Group and Buena Vista Film Sales gave Woo and Chang a two-year contract to produce action films that have been budgeted for under $20 million. However, Woo would next direct Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), the sequel to the 1996 spy thriller directed by Brian De Palma and starring Tom Cruise. Cruise had invited Woo to helm the movie while the latter was occupied with Blackjack. Upon Woo's condition that the storyline contain minimal science fiction elements, a team of scriptwriters, including Wesley Strick, William Goldman, Michael Tolkin, and Robert Towne, made several revisions to fit Woo's directorial style. However, production commenced without a finalised script, and Towne, the sole credited screenwriter, made further alterations during filming and post-production in an effort to present a coherent narrative. The production was further plagued by inclement weather and crew changes, resulting in delays and ballooning production costs from $80 million to over $100 million. The resulting film featured Cruise as Ethan Hunt, who must work together with a professional thief (played by Thandiwe Newton) to retrieve a deadly biological weapon from a rogue agent (Dougray Scott). Mission: Impossible 2 released to mixed critical reception, with many reviewers praising the action scenes but lambasting its incomprehensible story. David Ansen of Newsweek thought that the movie was "oddly dull", believing that the film's tone did not suit either Woo nor Cruise's strengths. Writing for The New York Times, A. O. Scott remarked that the stylistic differences between Woo and De Palma accounted for the "weird discontinuity" between the first film and the sequel. However, the movie was successful at the box office, earning over $546 million worldwide.


 * During the production of Hard Boiled, Woo had started to field interest from Hollywood
 * This included Tom Jacobson, the executive vice-president of production at 20th Century Fox, who forwarded Woo several scripts
 * Filmmaker Oliver Stone also inquired to see if Woo would like to direct a Warner Bros. kung fu film starring Phillip Rhee called Kato 
 * However, the project fell apart; according to Woo, executives considered him a neophyte director and did not give him "respectful pay"
 * Woo felt constrained by the smaller film industry in Hong Kong, and wanted to expand his horizons in America
 * A 1993 Variety article revealed that talent agent Christopher Godsick had gotten Woo to sign with William Morris Agency "several years back"
 * In January 1993, there were reports that TriStar Pictures wanted to sign Woo to direct a vehicle for Sharon Stone called Pin Cushion
 * Hard Target (1993)
 * Universal Studios producer James Jacks, screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer, and action star Jean-Claude Van Damme flew to Hong Kong and successfully convinced Woo to make a film for Universal starring Van Damme
 * Screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer used the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" as inspiration when writing
 * Woo wanted to turn Hard Target into a modernized Western film
 * He struggled with adjusting to the Hollywood system; he was surprised that actors had so much authority
 * The initial test screening was poorly received, forcing Woo to re-edit the film
 * Woo had to send the film to the Motion Picture Association ratings board seven times before it received an R rating
 * Emanuel Levy of Variety stated the film was "a compromised work", owing to the generic script, "disjointed storytelling" and "uneven performances", but still praised Woo's action set pieces
 * Richard Harrington of The Washington Post panned Van Damme's acting and criticised how much worse the film was in comparison to Woo's Hong Kong oeuvre, calling it "a disappointing affair that can probably be traced to seven producers and Hollywood's traditional inability to accommodate auteurs."
 * Harrington remarked that despite Woo's pedigree, it seemed the director had "run into a Hollywood system that wants to like him but refuses to trust him."
 * While Rolling Stone 's Peter Travers shared similar criticisms to Levy and Harrington, he heavily enjoyed Woo's action set pieces, stating, "Hard Target proves that John Woo is the hottest name in action anywhere. Woo doesn’t just direct action—he abstracts it, poeticizes it, explodes its boundaries and breaks it into dazzling new forms."
 * However, a review b y the South China Morning Post dismissed the visuals as "a sad mish-mash of Sam Peckinpah-style slow-motion blood-letting [...], Sergio Leone-style moody macho posturing, and a music-video gloss."
 * In February 1994, Variety reported that New Line Cinema paid Woo a seven-figure sum to film an action movie about a Florida police officer and the mafia
 * In 1994, Woo, Chang, and Godsick created an American production company called WCG Entertainment, named after their surnames
 * In November that year, 20th Century Fox announced that Woo had signed a two-year production deal with the studio; this agreement had Woo be represented by Metropolis Entertainment, an entity formed by Woo, Chang and Godsick, with Godsick leaving William Morris to help run the company (note: unsure if WCG Entertainment and Metropolis Entertainment are the same company)
 * A 1995 article by the South China Morning Post described the agreement with 20th Century Fox as a three-year development deal instead of two years
 * A 1996 article by the SCMP elaborates that the deal was a two-year deal with a one-year option to renew; the article; the article also says that Woo moved from Cinergi Pictures to 20th Century Fox
 * Woo had been considered a potential candidate to direct GoldenEye (1995)
 * Woo helped produce Don't Cry, Nanking (1995), a war film by Wu Ziniu about the Nanjing Massacre.
 * In 1995, Woo had been working on developing two projects: one called Shadow War with Universal, and Tears of the Sun with 20th Century Fox; however neither came to fruition
 * Woo had been working for eight months location scouting for Tears of the Sun, and was frustrated that scheduling delays forced him to be unable to film the movie
 * He was ultimately offered by 20th Century Fox to switch to directing Broken Arrow (1996)
 * Broken Arrow (1996)
 * Written by Graham Yost, who also wrote Speed (1994)
 * Woo found directing Broken Arrow a miserable experience, claiming that studio executives refused script changes, some of the crew were difficult to work with, and the line producer would undermine him by sneaking changes behind his back
 * Janet Maslin of The New York Times believed that even though Woo's storytelling abilities were "at the level of cartoonish jousting", the visual effects, Travolta's performance, and action sequences "[marked] a big step forward" for the director
 * Desson Howe of The Washington Post lambasted the film for its inability to translate the kinetic action of Woo's Hong Kong movies to Hollywood
 * Roger Ebert believed Travolta was miscast
 * In contrast, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle enjoyed the "inspired casting" of Travolta, and appreciated Woo's directorial touches throughout the film
 * An April 1996 report by The Asian Wall Street Journal noted that Woo was working with Tom Cruise on The Devil's Soldier, based on the novel by Caleb Carr about the life of an American mercenary in the Qing Dynasty
 * However, this project was cancelled for budgetary reasons
 * Once a Thief (TV movie, 1996)
 * Woo was asked to direct a TV movie based on his earlier 1990 film; he says he was asked two years prior to a 1996 interview
 * Through connections with William Morris Agency, Woo met and befriended screenwriters Glenn Davis and William Laurin in 1994; Glenn and Laurin worked at Alliance Communications, a Canadian production company
 * Woo: "As long as it's a good script and there are good people to work with, it doesn't matter if the project is a big-budget film or a small-budget TV series [...] I wanted to reach more people and try something different."
 * Woo teamed with the Canada-based Alliance Communications to make the pilot
 * This TV movie aired on Fox in hopes that the broadcaster would pick it up as a series
 * It also aired on Canada television stations; Woo was both the director and co-executive producer
 * Woo, on the series appearing on Fox: "After I made the pilot, I fell in love with television. So I would be producer and if I have time, I would direct some of the episodes because I really love this project."
 * Woo had a budget of approximately $2 million
 * Woo shot the pilot in 26 days, a grueling pace involving 14-to-18-hour work days
 * Variety 's Carole Horst described the TV film as "an entertaining telepic that can best be described as Woo Lite"
 * John J. O'Connor of The New York Times enjoyed the action scenes, but panned the acting by describing the cast as "pretty adornments"
 * John Ha slett Cuff of The Globe and Mail panned the movie, saying that it was "lacking the authentic charm and genuine physical genius of a Jackie Chan"
 * Steven Linan of the Los Angeles Times criticised the film for "perfunctory action sequences" and "awful acting"
 * Fox opt ed to not turn Once a Thief into a series
 * Two yea rs later in 1998, The Movie Channel bought the pilot, airing a "director's cut" version that restored unseen footage cut from the initial broadcast on Fox
 * By as early as 1997, Woo and Chang formed a new production company, calling it Lion Rock Productions in reference to their Hong Kong origins and steady friendship
 * King's Ransom (announced 1997, slated to begin filming in 1998, cancelled)
 * An article in The New York Times stated that Woo would start filming a comedy called King's Ransom the following year
 * In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that the movie was in development at Fox and would likely begin production once Woo finished Mission: Impossible 2
 * According to a report by Ain't It Cool News in 1999, Woo had originally developed the film as a traditional action movie working with writer John McCormick, but over time wanted to rework it into a more playful caper film with more lightheartedness and romance
 * Werb and Colleary from Face/Off were brought in to deliver rewrites featuring a love triangle between a female jewel thief, her partner-in-crime, and an FBI agent
 * However, Fox was expecting a script more in line with a traditional John Woo action movie, and insisted the film be reworked so that an A-list movie star would be interested in signing on
 * Because of the delays, Woo instead focused on Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
 * In a 2000 interview with Asiaweek, Woo stated that he had been anticipating making King's Ransom with Chow Yun-fat, stating that he hoped that the film "will help Hollywood see [Chow's] true quality and talent."
 * In another 2000 interview, this time with Première, Woo said: "The character changed. We're still working on a script. It's a very delightful Cary Grant kind of movie, young, with a lot of romance and energy."
 * Woo confirmed in 2003 that the project was cancelled, saying, "The script kept changing and changing, and it lost the original taste."
 * However, Woo and Chang tried again in 2009 to produce the film under the Fox International Productions banner, with former assistant director Patrick Leung potentially helming the project
 * Face/Off (1997)
 * Woo had been offered the script in 1992 when he first came to America; it was first offered by Joel Silver as a Warner Bros. production
 * Originally a movie set to be directed by Rob Cohen, and later Marco Brambilla, Woo liked the script's premise of having two characters swap lives
 * Woo initially declined because the script, written by Michael Colleary and Mike Werb, was originally significantly more steeped in science fiction
 * In 1995, Paramount Pictures bought the rights and producers Michael Douglas and Steve Reuthers offered the script again to Woo, but he declined because he was in the middle of making Broken Arrow
 * Woo wanted to set the story in the near-future of 2002, and more closely examine the familial relationships between the characters
 * Paramount also let Woo work without interference; chairman Sherry Lansing deliberately told executives to not give the director any notes because she wanted Woo's style for the movie
 * Face/Off was a box office success, earning $245 million on a budget of $80 million
 * While Desson Howe of The Washington Post thought Face/Off was "the maddest, most enjoyable blockbuster of the summer", he also believed that the film was "one of the strangest stories to ever get the green light at Hollywood studio."
 * Roger Ebert: "Here, using big movie stars and asking them to play each other, Woo and his writers find a terrific counterpoint to the action scenes: All through the movie, you find yourself reinterpreting every scene as you realize the 'other' character is 'really' playing it."
 * Time listed it sixth on their list of the best films of 1997
 * Once a Thief (TV series, 1997–1998)
 * While Fox declined to continue with Once a Thief, the Canadian broadcaster CTV Television Network opted to pay for the broadcast rights, enabling Woo to turn it into a full-fledged television series
 * Alliance decided to spend approximately $1.3 million an episode to deliver a season of 22 episodes
 * Woo served as executive producer on the project
 * His frequent collaborators, cinematographer Bill Wong and editor David Wu, were involved in the project
 * The series toned down the violence compared to the television film, adding in more comedic elements
 * Debuted on 15 September 1997 on CTV Television Network, a Canadian channel
 * By winter of that year, it had been put on temporary hiatus, resuming January 1998 with 13 episodes
 * The series was shortly canceled, with its final episode airing 2 May 1998
 * Eventually wound up in syndication on American television by 2002
 * At the 12th Gemini Awards, Woo was nominated for Best Direction in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series
 * The series garnered more accolades at the 13th Gemini Awards: Bert Kish won Best Picture Editing in a Dramatic Program or Series for his work on the episode "Rave On", and the series gained three additional nominations for Best TV Movie or Mini-Series, Best Original Music Score for a Program or Mini-Series (Amin Bhatia, for the piece "Jaded Love"), and David Wu also earned a Best Picture Editing nomination for the episode "True Blue"
 * Blackjack (TV movie, 1998)
 * Following Face/Off, Woo made Blackjack (1998), another two-hour television movie produced by Alliance Communications for USA Network
 * Scripted as a two-hour pilot in hopes that it would be turned into a series, it starred Dolph Lundgren as Jack Devlin, a bodyguard with a phobia of the colour white who must protect a model from being murdered by her ex-husband
 * Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of B+, noting that while it paled in comparison to Hard Boiled and Face/Off, it was better than most USA Network television movies
 * Michael Costello of AllMovie called it a "very sorry excuse for a John Woo film", criticizing the acting, dialogue, staging, and set design
 * A mixed review by TV Guide stated that while the film had some solid action scenes, it was "sabotaged by lackluster acting, thin characterization, and a derivative story line."
 * USA Network ultimately chose to not pick it up as a series
 * In January 1998, Chris Lee, the head of production at Sony subsidiary TriStar Pictures, signed Woo to a two-year, first-look production deal with the studio
 * Woo finished filming a television commercial for Nike in February 1998; this advertisement was for Nike's Mercurial football shoe and featured the Brazilian national football team.
 * In February 1998, Woo signed a contract with A Band Apart to make television commercials for them
 * In March 1998, Variety reported that TriStar had lined up "The Last Word", a period Western film for Woo and Terence Chang to produce
 * Reportedly, the studio paid a six-figure sum for the spec screenplay
 * Woo took the time to help executive produce Kirk Wong's The Big Hit (1998)
 * Variety also reported in May 1999 that Newmarket Capital Group and Buena Vista Film Sales gave Woo and Chang a two-year contract to produce action films that have been budgeted for under $20 million
 * Phantom of the Opera remake
 * Sometime during the late 1990s, Woo had been considered a candidate to direct a movie remake of The Phantom of the Opera musical
 * According to Woo, John Travolta, who was a fan of the musical, approached him with the idea of making the musical in his style; however, the project did not materialize
 * Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
 * On the set of Blackjack, Woo received a call from Tom Cruise, who wanted the director to work with him on a sequel to Mission: Impossible (1996)
 * Cruise maintained that he wanted each Mission: Impossible film to have a different director and style from the previous
 * After Woo stated that he would only take the job if the film had a non-science-fiction story that appealed to him, several scriptwriters, including Wesley Strick, William Goldman, Michael Tolkin, and Robert Towne made numerous revisions to the script in order to fit Woo's style
 * However, the movie started production without a finished script, and Towne, the sole credited screenwriter, worked on even more changes during the editing of the film in order to create a coherent plot from the filmed action scenes
 * Cruise, a producer on the film, insisted on performing as many of his own stunts himself, scaring Woo in a particularly dangerous stunt where he hung from a cliff by his fingertips after jumping over a chasm
 * Production was plagued with problems, including inclement weather and crew changes (such as cinematographer Andrew Lesnie)
 * It went over-schedule and over-budget, as production costs exceeded $100 million from its initial estimate of $80 million
 * Mission: Impossible 2 was released to mixed critical reception
 * David Ansen of Newsweek thought the movie was "oddly dull", believing that film's tone did not suit either Woo nor Cruise's strengths
 * Writing for the BBC, William Gallagher enjoyed the action scenes; he was annoyed by the film's insistence on explaining the plot to the audience as well as the "painfully silly romance" storyline
 * Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post said the movie was "such a feast of outlandish pleasures it'll send you home steam-cleaned and shrink-wrapped", though he thought the story was incomprehensible
 * David Hunter of The Hollywood Reporter also deemed the plot incomprehensible; he liked Woo's action but said "his use of slow motion becomes tiresome, and the motorcycles-and-kung-fu finale gets pretty hokey."
 * A. O. Scott of The New York Times stated the stylistic differences between Woo and previous director Brian De Palma accounted for the "weird discontinuity" between the first film and the sequel

2001-2007: Decline in Hollywood and other ventures
In January 2000, Woo left Sony without having directed any films for them. He decided to instead sign Lion Rock Productions with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In October of the same year, it was reported that Woo, Chang, and a couple of other companies would found an additional production company called Digital Rim. This new venture was set up to manage multimedia projects that utilise computer graphics, such as providing computer-generated imagery for film and television. Woo's first project under MGM would be Windtalkers (2002), a war film examining the code talkers from the Navajo nation employed during World War II. Woo wanted the story to focus on the friendships between the characters; this was approved by the studio despite resistance from the screenwriters. The script was also subjected to edits at the behest of the United States Department of Defense and the United States Marine Corps, who had lent production assistance to the film and objected to scenes that they felt depicted Marines negatively. The production suffered from bad weather, and the film's release was further delayed to distance the movie from the September 11 attacks. Windtalkers was a box office bomb, earning only $77.6 million worldwide on a production budget of $115 million. It was also critically panned; Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it "a disappointing feature" that presented a superficial understanding of the relationship between the code talkers and the Marines. Perceiving the film as "fundamentally schlocky" with numerous clichés, David Edelstein of Slate quipped that "Woo could end up becoming the John Ford of schmaltz." In a positive review however, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader believed its "masterful storytelling" left him "moved and absorbed".

After Windtalkers, Woo continued to explore television by executive producing Red Skies, a martial arts television movie. This project aired on USA Network in the summer of 2002. In October 2002, it was announced that he signed a one-year television deal with 20th Century Fox Television and their sister studio Regency Television to direct potential pilot episodes. That same month, Woo contributed a short film for BMW's branded content series The Hire (2002). The movie featured Clive Owen as a skilled BMW driver entrusted with delivering ransom money to help free a kidnapped CEO (played by Kathryn Morris). Woo left MGM in February 2003, signing Lion Rock Productions to a two-year first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. After producing Paul Hunter's Bulletproof Monk (2003), Woo would direct Paycheck (2003), a Paramount and Dreamworks Pictures co-production based on the 1953 short story of the same name by Philip K. Dick. Woo saw the film's script as an opportunity to impart a hopeful message to younger viewers, while also paying homage to one of his favourite directors in Alfred Hitchcock. However, he admitted he had not read any of Dick's books before directing the film, and had wanted to reshape the screenplay to de-emphasise the science fiction elements in the original story. Starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in the lead roles, Paycheck grossed over $117.2 million on a budget of $60 million, but received generally negative reviews from critics.

Following Paycheck 's under-performance with critics, Woo struggled throughout the mid-2000s to get feature films developed in Hollywood. In a 2023 interview with IndieWire, Woo admitted, "Because I failed with Paycheck, I didn't get a good script offered to me for a long, long time." Several projects that Woo was attached to never made it into production, including a Charlie Chan remake starring Lucy Liu, as well as film adaptations of Metroid,  Spyhunter,   Rainbow Six, and Masters of the Universe.  In May 2003, Woo, Chang, and producer Brad Foxhoven announced the formation of a new entertainment studio called Tiger Hill Entertainment. This studio would partner with Sega to develop and publish new and existing video game properties. Woo also stated in September of that year that he would be directing a new television adaptation of Lost in Space series. While Woo got the chance to film the pilot episode, the series was never picked up for syndication. Woo served as part of the main jury at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in May of that year. By October 2005, his main production company, Lion Rock Productions, was no longer at Paramount.

Over the next couple of years, Woo would spend time producing films and detouring into other mediums. In 2006, Woo collaborated with writer Garth Ennis to create a new comic book series for Virgin Comics called Seven Brothers (2006). This was a five-issue mini-series loosely based on the Chinese folk tale of the Ten Brothers. The following year, he served as producer on two movies: Blood Brothers by first-time director Alexi Tan, and the Japanese animated film Appleseed Ex Machina, where he gave guidance on both the story and the action sequences. While most of Woo's video game projects at Tiger Hill Entertainment would go unrealised, he and Midway Games successfully released the third-person shooter game Stranglehold (2007). This was a sequel to Hard Boiled, with Chow Yun-fat reprising his main character role. The game sold over one million copies worldwide.


 * In January 2000, Variety reported that Woo and Terence Chang left Sony to sign Lion Rock Productions with MGM; Woo left Sony without ever directing a film for them
 * In October the same year, it was reported that Woo, Terence Chang, and a couple of other companies would create the production company Digital Rim
 * The new company would serve to create and distribute digital pictures, video games, and computer-generated imagery for film and television
 * Digital Rim would start production and distribution of Ark, an animated film that Variety touted would "combine Asian anime techniques with Western creative sensibilities"
 * In March 2001, it was announced that Woo and Chang would produce a remake of Sam Peckinpah's film The Killer Elite (1975)
 * In June 2001, it was reported that Digital Rim would collaborate with Mirage Studios to develop and produce an animated film based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise
 * Digital Rim had already a produced a television pilot for a TMNT CG-animated series, hoping that networks would be interested; however, an August 2001 update by IGN confirmed that the idea for television series was scrapped
 * The TMNT film was tentatively scheduled for a Christmas 2002 release
 * Woo confirmed in an 2003 interview with Patrick Macias that the TMNT film was not going to happen
 * Windtalkers (2002)
 * Woo's next project was Windtalkers (2002)
 * First announced in 1998 as a project for United Artists, a sublabel of MGM
 * It was the first project under Lion Rock Productions
 * Woo accepted the project after he and Chang were pitched the concept by screenwriters John Rice and Joe Batteer, and producers Alison Rosenzweig and Tracie Graham
 * Woo wanted to focus on the friendships in the story
 * Woo recalled that his requests to focus on friendships was met with resistance from the writers, but MGM backed the director
 * The script was also subjected to several edits in order to get approval and assistance from the United States Department of Defense and the United States Marine Corps; cuts included a scene where a Marine pulls fillings from a Japanese soldier's corpse, and a scene where a character kills a Japanese soldier trying to surrender
 * Woo remembered the film shoot was rough due to the bad weather, which held up production
 * In an effort to achieve ethnic accuracy, Native American actors were cast to play the code talkers
 * The film suffered from delays, including one meant to distance the film from the September 11 attacks.
 * Windtalkers was a box office bomb, earning only $77.6 million worldwide on a production budget of $115 million
 * The film was panned by critics; Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it "a disappointing feature" that presented a superficial understanding of the relationship between the code talkers and the Marines
 * Robert Koehler of Variety lamented that the film was "a powerful premise turned into a stubbornly flat, derivative war movie."
 * Slate 's David Edelstein found the film cliched and overly sentimental, quipping that "Woo could end up becoming the John Ford of schmaltz."
 * In a positive review however, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader believed its "masterful storytelling" left him "moved and absorbed"
 * As early as July 2001, Woo was attached to The Line, a period film starring Chow Yun-fat about a Chinese railroad worker who vows to get revenge on those who sold him into slavery
 * Later reportedly titled Men of Destiny and Land of Destiny, Nicolas Cage was rumoured to be attached to the project
 * Red Skies (executive producer, TV movie, 2002)
 * Woo was one of the executive producers of the martial arts television movie Red Skies, which aired on USA Network in the summer of 2002
 * In October 2002, it was announced that Woo signed a one-year television deal with 20th Century Fox Television and their sister studio Regency Television to direct potential television pilot episodes
 * In November 2002, it was reported that Woo might be working with Nickelodeon Movies on a Mighty Mouse film for Paramount
 * In February 2003, it was announced that Lion Rock Productions would sign a two-year, first-look deal with Paramount, departing from MGM
 * Woo helped produce Bulletproof Monk (2003) directed by Paul Hunter
 * Paycheck (2003)
 * In October 2002, Woo became attached to Paycheck (2003), based on a short story by Philip K. Dick.
 * A Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures co-production
 * Woo was interested in the film because he wanted to impart a hopeful message to younger viewers, as well as to pay homage to one of his favourite directors, Alfred Hitchcock.
 * Woo admitted he had not read any of Dick's books before directing the film; after reading the script, he wanted to make changes like exploring the theme of control over one's destiny, and adding in more of a love story
 * Woo wanted to downplay more of the science fiction elements in the original script and focus on the humans, in particular the romantic love story
 * Mick LaSalle said that the film loses steam in the second half as the plot "degenerates into chases and standard action"
 * In a 2023 interview with IndieWire, Woo said, "Because I failed with Paycheck, I didn't get a good script offered to me for a long, long time."
 * In the spring of 2003, Woo was rumoured to be producing a remake of Charlie Chan starring Lucy Liu under Lion Rock Productions
 * In May 2003, Woo, Chang, and producer Brad Foxhoven announced that they would forming a new entertainment studio called Tiger Hill Entertainment, which would partner with Sega to develop and publish new and existing properties
 * In October 2003, it was announced that Woo would work with writer Sheldon Turner on an hour-long Fox Broadcasting drama series about the firearms trade
 * The Robinsons: Lost in Space (2004 television pilot, series not picked up)
 * In September 2003, Variety announced that Woo would direct a television adaptation of Lost in Space
 * Warner Bros. announced the following month that they would buy the rights to it
 * Woo filmed the pilot episode, but the series was not picked up
 * Metroid film (first announced 2004, cancelled)
 * In April 2004, Woo confirmed he optioned the film rights to the Metroid video game series via Tiger Hill Games
 * Woo would be producing the movie and given the option to direct it; The Hollywood Reporter asserted that the film would be releasing by Christmas 2005
 * However, Nintendo producer Yoshio Sakamoto refuted the reported release date
 * In a 2012 interview with IGN, Tiger Hill co-founder Brad Foxhoven stated the project fizzled out; he claimed that Nintendo was apprehensive about outside writers handling their franchises ever since the box office failure of Super Mario Bros. (1993), but couldn't provide in-depth answers about Samus Aran's backstory raised by the filmmakers
 * Spyhunter (first announced 2004, Woo leaves 2005)
 * Woo was briefly attached to a Spyhunter film as reported in May 2004, but had left by 2005 due to scheduling conflicts
 * Rainbow Six (first announced 2004)
 * Woo was also involved with a potential Rainbow Six film adaptation
 * He-Man (first announced in 2004)
 * Woo was linked to a He-Man film based on Masters of the Universe media franchise
 * Le Cercle Rouge (first announced in 2004)
 * Woo had been linked in 2004 to a potential remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Cercle Rouge for Paramount
 * He was asked to serve on the main jury for the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in May of that year
 * Demonik (video game, first announced 2005, cancelled 2006)
 * The same month, Woo's Tiger Hill Entertainment announced that they would work with director Clive Barker on Demonik, an action-adventure game developed by Terminal Reality and published by Majesco
 * Demonik was intended to also have a accompanying movie, with Barker retaining the option to write and direct it
 * The game was scheduled to release in the spring of 2006, but was cancelled in January of that year after Majesco had a poor fiscal quarter
 * In May 2005, Variety reported that Woo's Lion Rock Productions would partner with StudioCanal to make modernized remakes of three French thriller films
 * In June 2005, it was reported that Woo would return to China to direct and product an then-untitled thriller for Bristol Bay Productions and StudioCanal
 * This movie would be about an American who becomes embroiled in a struggle between Chinese government officials and the underworld forces behind China's underground economy
 * An October 2005 report by Variety on the status of production studios at the time revealed that Woo's Lion Rock Productions was no longer at Paramount
 * Seven Brothers (2006)
 * In 2006, Virgin Comics announced that Woo would work with writer Garth Ennis to create a new comic book series called Seven Brothers (2006)
 * This was a five-issue mini-series loosely based on the Chinese folk tale of the Ten Brothers.
 * Blood Brothers (producer, 2007)
 * Served as producer for Alexi Tan's Blood Brothers
 * Appleseed Ex Machina (producer, 2007)
 * Served as producer on Appleseed Ex Machina; gave guidance on the story and action sequences, including suggesting to simplify the plot to make it more accessible
 * Ninja Gold film and video game
 * In May 2007, it was reported that Woo would produce and direct Ninja Gold, an intellectual property created by Warren Spector, a game designer
 * Spector would executive produce
 * The film directed by Woo would be made concurrently with the game
 * Woo planned to start production on the movie the following year
 * However, a year into production, its publisher, Vivendi, canceled all of its unannounced projects before its merger with Activision, which forced the team to stop development

2008-2017: Red Cliff and return to Asian cinema
By the middle of 2007, Woo decided to head back to Asia to commerce production on Red Cliff (2008), an epic film retelling the Battle of Red Cliffs that he conceived 20 years prior as a dream project. He stated that while he enjoyed his time working in the United States, he disliked navigating the internal studio politics, and wanted to use his experience working on American productions to help the Chinese film industry create a big-budget, Hollywood-style movie. The film's development and production was a protracted, arduous affair. Woo and Chang initially struggled to find a production company that would finance the movie without a script or budget, ultimately finding four different companies from Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Next, Woo ran into casting issues, with Chow Yun-fat dropping out of the film three days into shooting. Shooting was beset with weather issues and other problems, including a fire that killed a stuntman and injured six others. Red Cliff was the most expensive Chinese-language film in history, costing $80 million to make.

At the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, Woo announced that he would direct a wartime romance film called 1949. The film, budgeted at $40 million USD and written by Wang Hui-ling, was meant to be set during the last years of the Chinese Civil War. However, in April 2009, producer Chang stated that production on 1949 was cancelled due to a legal dispute over the rights to the script. The following year, Woo would appear in a small cameo as Lin Sen in The Founding of a Party (2011), a mainland Chinese film produced by the state-owned China Film Group to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. He also was selected to lead the jury at the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival in June of that year. Woo would return to work by producing and co-directing the wuxia film Reign of Assassins (2010) with Su Chao-pin. Intended as a vehicle for lead actress Michelle Yeoh to showcase her martial arts skills,  the film follows Yeoh's character, a former assassin, as she is pursued by her old gang in search of a valuable Buddhist relic. Since Su was not well-known outside of Taiwan, Woo agreed to be listed as a co-director to ease investor concerns about box office performance. Woo primarily acted as a producer, but did direct one scene with his daughter Angeles in her first film role. Reign of Assassins made $13.3 million at the box office.

Woo co-produced two more projects in 2011. The first was Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011), a Taiwanese historical drama directed by Wei Te-sheng about the Musha Incident in 1930. The second was an animated web series based on his Seven Brothers graphic novel, which aired on Machinima. In December of that year, it was announced that production on 1949 would resume under the new working title of Love and Let Love. However, this would be halted shortly as Woo quietly underwent treatment for a medical issue. The project resumed in 2013, with shooting beginning in July of that year.


 * Woo said that even though he enjoyed his time working in Hollywood, he disliked the internal politics of its studios and trying to please its executives
 * Red Cliff (2008)
 * Woo began shooting Red Cliff (2008), marking his first time shooting in mainland China
 * Red Cliff was a dream project for Woo that he conceived 20 years prior
 * Woo had been interested in leveraging his experience in Hollywood to help Chinese filmmakers learn from big-budget American productions
 * He wanted to prove that China could "have the same ability and talent necessary to make a big Hollywood movie."
 * However, the film's development was a protracted, arduous journey beginning in 2004, in which business partner Chang struggled to find a production company that would finance the film without a script or budget
 * Production was ultimately funded by four different production companies from Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan
 * Tony Leung withdrew from the film in March 2007, citing scheduling issues; Takeshi Kaneshiro replaced him for the role of Zhuge Liang
 * Chow Yun-fat dropped out of the film three days into shooting, with Chow and Chang giving different reasons on why the actor left the project
 * Leung then returned to replace Chow
 * Filming was plagued by weather issues and other delays; a stuntman was killed and six others injured in a fire during production
 * The movie cost $80 million, making it the most expensive Chinese-language film in history
 * In Asia, the movie was released in two parts; for Western audiences the plot was condensed into a single film
 * Jason Solomons of The Observer acknowledged that while the abridged version suffered from "plot holes and giant leaps", "ropey CGI", and "hard-to-fathom characters", he found the film enjoyable entertainment, stating that "you can't really beat Red Cliff as the classiest and most fabulous blockbuster of the summer."
 * While Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe generally enjoyed Woo's action sequences, he found the international cut overly long, finding much of the film "corny, cramped, and vague"
 * David Edelstein of New York was more critical of Woo's set pieces—he called the director a "vulgarian" whose compositions have "no texture"—but still enjoyed the international cut of Red Cliff
 * Simon Abrams criticised the decision to condense Red Cliff into one film, calling it "out-and-out disrespect for a much-vaunted filmmaker’s vision" by "[undercutting] the grandeur of Woo’s hyper-expensive set pieces" in an attempt to make the movie more accessible
 * At the 28th Hong Kong Film Awards, Red Cliff: Part I earned 14 nominations, winning five for Best Art Direction, Best Costume and Make-up Design, Best Sound Design, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score
 * Prior to announcing what would become The Crossing, it was reported in July 2008 that Woo was attached to direct an adaptation of Radical Comics' Caliber; this was refuted by Woo in November 2009, where he cited scheduling issues
 * The Crossing (started 2008 under the working title of 1949, released 2014)
 * Woo had announced at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 that he would direct a wartime romance movie called 1949
 * The film, budgeted at $40 million USD and written by Wang Hui-ling, was meant to be set during the Chinese Civil War's last years
 * However, in April 2009, producer Terence Chang said that production on 1949 was cancelled due to a legal dispute over the rights to the script; Chang claimed that the film's Taiwanese investors had sold the script to a television channel
 * In December 2011, it was announced that production on the film would resume under the new working title of Love and Let Love
 * Production was halted shortly thereafter, as Woo quietly underwent treatment for a medical issue; the project resumed in 2013, with shooting beginning in July of that year
 * It was ultimately released in two parts under the name The Crossing (2014)
 * The first part opened in China on 2 December 2014 to lukewarm reviews, earning only $18.1 million over six days
 * Following the disappointing return of The Crossing, Woo and Chang disbanded Lion Rock Productions
 * Flying Tigers (announced as early as 2009, unreleased and presumed cancelled)
 * Woo stated in a press conference in July 2009 that he was planning to make a World War II historical film about the Flying Tigers.
 * In August 2010, IMAX Corporation announced that Woo would be released in IMAX format, and that shooting would begin the following spring
 * Woo remarked that he would like Liam Neeson to be cast in a leading role
 * By April 2013, it was reported that the film would be released as a two-part feature film in China, and a six-hour mini-series internationally
 * However, in a 2022 interview with Deadline, Woo said that it had been difficult to find financial backing for the historical epic, due to the film's scope and requisite amount of visual effects
 * Reign of Assassins (2010)
 * In June 2009, Michelle Yeoh announced her plans to work with Woo and Su Chao-pin on a wuxia film called The Sword and the Martial Arts World; production was anticipated to begin in September that year
 * This was meant as a vehicle for Yeoh, who is friends with Woo and Chang, to showcase her martial arts skills
 * Since Su was not well-known outside of Taiwan, Woo agreed to be listed as a co-director to ease the investors' concerns about box office performance
 * In an interview with Giant Robot, Su confirmed that Woo primarily acted as a producer, but did direct one scene with his daughter Angeles
 * Woo was selected to lead the jury at the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival in June of that year
 * He had a small cameo as Lin Sen in The Founding of a Party (2011), a mainland Chinese film produced by the state-owned China Film Group to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China; Woo also had a bit part in an earlier historical drama called The Founding of a Republic (2009), but his part was cut
 * 7 Brothers (producer, 2011, animated web series)
 * Woo produced an animated web series based on his Seven Brothers graphic novel, which aired on Machinima starting in 2011
 * Day of the Beast (announced 2012)
 * In 2012, Woo announced that he would direct a remake of Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast (1963) called Day of the Beast
 * His and Chang's Lion Rock Productions would co-produce the film with Nikkatsu's Naoki Sato, based on a script written by Rob Frisbee
 * In a 2014 interview with Time Out Hong Kong, Woo reiterated his intention to work it, noting that the movie needed financing
 * Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (producer, 2011)
 * Woo co-produced Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (2011), a Taiwanese historical drama directed by Wei Te-sheng about the Musha Incident in 1930
 * Manhunt (2017)
 * Following the 2014 death of one of Woo's cinematic idols, Ken Takakura, the director wanted to make a film that would pay tribute to the actor
 * At the request of Media Asia executive Peter Lam, Woo agreed to direct Manhunt (2017), a remake based on the 1976 film of the same name starring Takakura
 * Woo appreciated that he would be able to return to themes explored earlier in his career, like brotherhood and justice
 * Woo changed the nationality of the main character to Chinese to emphasize how people from different cultures can work together
 * Manhunt flopped at the box office, grossing a worldwide total of $18.3 million on a budget of $50 million

2021-present: Silent Night and return to Hollywood

 * Woo had been originally slotted to direct a portion of the anthology film Septet: The Story of Hong Kong, but withdrew from production for personal reasons
 * Woo announced in October 2021 that he would produce a live-action version of Monkey Master, based on an unreleased story created by Stan Lee and Sharad Devarajan.
 * Woo explained that he always wanted to create a film based on the Monkey King, but struggled to come up with an original way to retell the iconic character's story until he discovered Lee's unique version
 * Silent Night (2023)
 * Woo said that he was frustrated by the lack of scripts that were interesting to him, saying that he had been pigeonholed into doing historical films in China, and big, commercial action films in Hollywood
 * Woo said that in Hollywood, he was never sent any scripts for more personal, smaller-scale films because he became established as a big-budget action director
 * Asking his agents for compelling scripts, Woo was intrigued by one that Thunder Road Films sent him containing no dialogue
 * Using the script as a personal challenge to visually tell a story, Woo directed Silent Night (2023)
 * Silent Night stars Joel Kinnaman as a grieving father who goes on a revenge mission after losing his son and his own voice to a gang shootout on Christmas Eve
 * He described the movie as his "first independent film", as there was little studio interference with the project, to the point where it reminded him of his smaller-scale Hong Kong productions
 * Woo intentionally changed his personal style for this film, incorporating more grounded, realistic fight choreography and not including common motifs like doves
 * The film received mixed reviews
 * Glenn Kenny of The New York Times thought that the movie was "suspenseful and cathartic", saying that "even the schmaltzy stuff is so distinctly John Woo that it’s welcome."
 * The Hollywood Reporter 's Frank Scheck enjoyed Woo's kinetic action sequences and "gorgeously fluid" visual transitions; he said "the film’s lack of dialogue proves not a gimmick but an asset."
 * Richard Roeper said, "there’s something undeniably refreshing about Woo’s reliance on sound, movement and sometimes flashy camera moves to tell his very simple but effective revenge tale."
 * The Killer (upcoming)
 * Woo is planning to direct and produce a remake of his 1989 film for Universal Pictures' Peacock streaming service
 * Actors Omar Sy and Nathalie Emmanuel are cast in the lead roles
 * The film will be released on Peacock on 23 August 2024
 * Project about Dean Lung (tentative)
 * Woo has mentioned wanting to direct a film about Dean Lung, a Chinese American valet of Horace Carpentier who had helped Columbia University fund their Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

Personal life

 * Woo is married to Anne Chung-lung Niu
 * She had been a script supervisor for Chang Cheh, and had been receiving training from actor Chung Chang's film school when she and Woo first met in 1975
 * Woo and Niu first met in 1975, before Woo began filming Hand of Death
 * Woo and Niu married in Los Angeles on 5 March 1976
 * Woo and Niu have three children together:
 * Kimberley Hsiang-fong Woo (, born 1976 in Hong Kong) - the eldest daughter
 * Angeles Fei-shai Woo (, born 1978 in Los Angeles) - the second daughter; has had small acting roles in multiple of her father's films
 * Frank Yee-fong Woo (, born 1982 in California) - the only son
 * Both Angeles and Kimberley have worked for Woo as office assistants
 * Angeles has liked movies, and has directed some short films of her own
 * Frank studied medicine in college
 * Woo is a private individual and prefers to avoid discussing his personal life
 * Despite his films' subject matter, Woo is a pacifist and dislikes violence
 * In a 1997 interview, he notes that he had never fired a gun in his life
 * Woo and his family moved to Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles in 1992
 * Woo became an American citizen on 12 January 1999
 * In 2012, Woo took an extended leave from work to deal with a health problem
 * Variety and The Straits Times reported it was throat cancer
 * However, Woo denied this in May of that year, claiming that doctors had found and removed a benign tonsil tumour and that it was not malignant

Style

 * Woo's intention was to create a unified style between dialogue and action; he felt that Hong Kong films had noticeably distracting stylistic shifts whenever an action choreographer would take over the direction for fight scenes
 * The violent action in Woo's films has been referred to as a choreographed dance or musical;  Woo says he pays attention to the rhythm of the gunfire, and often listens to music when choreographing and editing action scenes
 * "When I shoot action sequences I think of great dancers, Gene Kelly, Astaire [...] In action I feel like I'm creating a ballet, a dance. That's what I like. Even though there's violence, it's a dance. I make it a dance."
 * Woo: "When I'm designing action, I put myself in the character's mind. [...] It's drama and character that make the difference. Otherwise all action is the same."
 * He takes inspiration from jazz when choreographing action scenes
 * Woo uses birds and doves to symbolize purity and innocence; he uses them to represent the presence of spiritual things
 * Woo's unrestrained, melodramatic filmmaking style was uncommon in Hong Kong at the time

Method

 * Woo frequently arms his characters with a Beretta 92, due to the semi-automatic pistol's "strong and elegant" look
 * Woo does not use a storyboard for his action scenes, preferring to be inspired by the environment on location; he relies on instinct when directing
 * Woo claims that he knows what camera settings to use (and other scene requirements) because he is able to see the whole sequence in his mind as he is working
 * However, for his Hollywood films, he adapted to using a storyboard in order to help producers determine the production's budget
 * Woo tends to experiment with multiple angles (using up to 15 cameras for complicated action sequences) and choose the best ones when editing
 * He also sets his cameras at different speeds
 * Depending on the actor, he will use different camera speeds when shooting them for slow-motion sequences
 * Woo tends to bounce between both extremes of shot composition: he either uses a wide-angle lens to let the audience see the entire shot, or an extreme telephoto lens to capture an actor's presence in closeup
 * Earlier in his career in Hong Kong, Woo had been known to be a serious taskmaster during filming
 * However, he softened his approach over time, allowing a more collaborative process where he gives actors creative freedom with their dialogue
 * Woo spends time with his actors, learning about their lives in order to accentuate their positive qualities on film
 * Woo states that he loves his actors, and that he believes that it is his duty as the director to find their best qualities and bring them out on film
 * Likewise, he thinks of his crew as his family, so he tries to bond with them over dinner

Themes

 * Woo frequently uses his films to reminisce about family, friendship, chivalry, and honour in what he perceives to be a bygone era
 * Woo: "I try to show something good and pure about the human spirit. Qualities like loyalty, honor, dignity and a spirit of chivalry that has disappeared."
 * In many of his films, the protagonists are shown to be morally good, even when they are gangsters
 * Woo often says that he makes films to teach young people about things he values, whether it be loyalty and chivalry (A Better Tomorrow), or big-budget filmmaking (Red Cliff)
 * Woo on his childhood: "People were murdered right outside my door all the time. I saw it. I heard it. I felt like I was living in hell. I remember two big riots where people died right at our front door, killed by the police. Ever since then I wanted to use violence in my films to send a message. I do not chase violence for its own sake but for the beauty of the idea. I also think I need some kind of hero. The hero is ourselves, not just someone who kills the bad guys but someone who emphasizes how we might build up dignity."
 * As Desson Howe wrote for The Washington Post, "His female characters tend to be abstract damsels in distress, in need of reverence, pity or protection."

Influences

 * Woo also has a fondness for French New Wave films, as well as Italian and Japanese cinema

Frequent collaborators

 * He prefers working with the same people on multiple movies, due to their familiarity with his camera setup preferences
 * He bonded with Chow Yun-fat over their shared struggles in the film industry during the production of A Better Tomorrow
 * Woo: "I like Chow's personality [...] He' s a genuine, honest person. He likes helping people. So do I. We have a lot in common. We both started at the bottom, we struggled to survive, and succeeded. To some extent, Chow represents me."
 * Many in the media have likened the director-actor relationship between Woo and Chow to Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune's relationship
 * He and Chow would work together on five Hong Kong films: A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989),  Once a Thief (1991) and Hard Boiled (1992)
 * Woo has also partnered with Terence Chang for much of his career; he credits Chang for helping him navigate studio politics in Hollywood
 * In addition to Chow Yun-fat, he has collaborated with cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball, sound designer Alan Rankin, and casting director Mindy Marin on many of his Hollywood films

Views on the film industry

 * Prefers to not watch films reliant on computer-generated imagery, or superhero films; instead, he specified liking "old-fashioned movies"
 * Woo, on comic book films: "I'm concerned about when these movies get more and more popular, I'm afraid it will make young audiences get lost when it comes to knowledge about film."
 * In a 2014 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Woo believed that there was opportunity for the Chinese film industry to learn from Hollywood, such as the film variety and the "united industry spirit"
 * In a 2002 interview with Variety, Woo described himself as "a bridge between East and West", stating, "I want to bring the good elements from each together, to establish a new image of equality for both sides."
 * He reiterated this view in a 2010 interview with The Wall Street Journal, stating, "I see myself as a bridge. I always try to bring in the good things from both sides. We can learn from each other."

Recognition

 * In a 2002article for The New York Times, film critic Dave Kehr called him "arguably the most influential director making movies today."
 * Woo is credited with popularizing the aestheticisation of violence in film
 * So many directors have copied or been inspired by Woo's stylistic flourishes, such as the use of slow-motion, dual wielding firearms, and the Mexican standoff, that these elements have become part of the cinematic vocabulary of action cinema
 * In his autobiography, director Robert Rodriguez noted Woo's influence on American directors in a conversation he had with Quentin Tarantino: "I told [Tarantino] that ever since I saw The Killer, I figured the new wave of cinema in the US would be made by young filmmakers who were influenced by the frantic, imaginative, hyperaction films made by the Chinese."
 * North American exposure to his work through film festival screenings helped earn him a cult following amongst young filmmakers enamoured by his style
 * Woo's Hong Kong films directly led to the rise of the heroic bloodshed film genre
 * Directors he inspired:
 * Wong Kar-wai (Days of Being Wild, 1990)
 * Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, 1992)
 * Tarantino: "John Woo was a major hero to me at the time – I was just so influenced by Hong Kong cinema. To this day, I still think it's the most invigorating cinema that's made in the world... there had not been a Sergio Leone to come out and show us what we'd seen before but with new eyes until John Woo."
 * The Wachowskis (The Matrix, 1999)
 * Alan Mak (Infernal Affairs, 2002)
 * Chad Stahelski and David Leitch (John Wick series)
 * Felix Chong (Project Gutenberg, 2018)
 * S. S. Rajamouli (in general)
 * Robert Rodriguez (in general)
 * Rodriguez: "I remember when I was in college, I saw a bunch of John Woo movies that were really big, and you’d walk out of that movie theater wanting to be Chinese. You wanted to be Chow Yun-fat [...] It was because of how he was portrayed as a hero. I thought, 'I want to do that with Hispanics. I want to do that with Mexicans.'"
 * Music
 * RZA sampled dialogue from The Killer on Raekwon's album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995)
 * The Wu-Tang Clan's second album, Wu-Tang Forever (1997) features a track called "A Better Tomorrow" named after the soundtrack for Woo's film that it samples
 * Beastie Boys reference Woo in "Sure Shot" on Ill Communication (1994)
 * Conway the Machine named the song "John Woo Flick" after the director on God Don't Make Mistakes (2022)

Awards and honours

 * Woo received an honourary doctorate in social sciences from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2004 for his contributions to Asian cinema
 * In June 2004, the Gene Siskel Film Center honoured Woo with their inaugural Visionary Award for Innovation in Filmmaking
 * That same year, he also won a Bronze Bauhinia Star; Woo would later receive a Silver Bauhinia Star in 2010
 * In September 2010, the Venice Film Festival honoured the director with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award
 * He was awarded a Samurai Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2015 for his filmmaking contributions
 * In recognition of his craft, Woo was honoured with the Halekulani Lifetime Achievement Award at the 39th Hawaii International Film Festival in 2019
 * He received a career achievement award at the 26th Fantasia International Film Festival in 2022