John Woo - Movies, Bio & Filmography

Meet John Woo

★ Directing🎥 50 films📺 6 TV shows📅 1962–2022🔥 2

Also known as: Wu Yu-Sheng, Wu Yu-Shen, Wu Yao-Shen, John Y. S. Woo...

Born in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China

1946-09-22 (age 79)

John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong film director and producer.  Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled and Red Cliff.  His Hollywood films include Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2.  He also created the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics.  Woo was described by Dave Kehr in The Observer in 2002 as "arguably the most influential director making movies today". Woo cites his three favorite films as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï.From Wikipedia
John Woo Yu-sen  (Chinese: 吳宇森; born 22 September 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker known as a highly influential figure in the action film genre. The recipient of various accolades, including a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing, as well as a Golden Horse Award, an Asia Pacific Screen Award and a Saturn Award, he is regarded as a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films and the gun fu genre in Hong Kong action cinema. 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. He is known for his collaborations with actor Chow Yun-fat in five Hong Kong action films: A Better Tomorrow (1986), which made Chow a box-office superstar in Asia, A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), Once a Thief (1991), and Hard Boiled (1992). He has also directed martial arts films such as The Dragon Tamers (1975), Hand of Death (1976), and Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979), and action comedies such as Follow the Star (1978), From Riches to Rags (1980),  Run, Tiger, Run (1984), and the aforementioned Once a Thief.
Hard Target (1993), starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, was his American directorial debut, and the first major Hollywood film directed by a Chinese – and more broadly, Asian – filmmaker. His other Hollywood films include Broken Arrow (1996), Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible 2 (2000). He made his Canadian debut with the action comedy film Once a Thief (1996), which is a remake of Woo's 1991 film of the same name. He continued to be active in Hong Kong cinema, directing films such as the two-part historical epic The Crossing (2014). His first Chinese-language feature since Hard Boiled (1992) was the internationally co-produced Red Cliff (2008–2009), which broke the Chinese box office record previously held by Titanic in mainland China.
Woo is the creator of the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. He is the founder and chairman of the production company Lion Rock Productions.

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