Daniel's Action Web: JOHN WOO (biography)

ohn Woo, born in Guangzhou in 1946. Migrated to Hong Kong with his family at the age of four. As a kid, he was fascinated by movies. In 1967, he formed a student film society and discussed ideas for experimental films with early film producers. From the years 1971 to 1972, John Woo became an assistant film director with the Shaw Brothers Film Company. In 1973, he became a full-fledged movie director and made his first full-length movie, "The Young Dragons" (Tie3 Han4 Rou2 Qing2). Following that, John Woo made a variety of comedies and swordsfighting flicks.

John Woo's
A BETTER TOMORROW set the trend
of "heroic fraternity"
films.

In 1986, John Woo teamed up with Tsui Hark to produce "A Better Tomorrow" (Ying1 Xiong2 Ben3 Se4). This lushly balletic and violent gangster movie set the trend of John Woo with Chow Yun Fatt "heroic fraternity" films (Ying1 Xiong2 Pian4) which was to be followed and cloned by other film makers. This movie not only brought fame to John Woo, it also revived the career of actor Di Lung and made Chow Yun Fatt a movie star. Till today, Chow Yun Fatt is remembered for his role as 'Brother Mark' (Xiao2 Ma3 Ge1) in A Better Tomorrow.

John Woo with Broken Arrow stars In following years, John Woo made "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" which caught Hollywood's attention and he achieved cult-director status there. In 1993, John Woo made his first directorial debut in Hollywood with Hard Target, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lance Henriksen. In 1995, he made it big when 20th Century Fox contracted him to direct "Broken Arrow", an action-thriller starring John Travolta and Christian Slater. John Woo is set to direct Travolta again in his upcoming movie "Face-Off".