John Woo

John Woo

John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (Chinese: 吳宇森; born 1 May 1946) is a Hong Kong film director, producer and screenwriter. He is considered a major influence on the action genre, known for his highly chaotic action sequences, stylized imagery, Mexican standoffs, frequent use of slow motion and allusions to neo-noir, wuxia and Western cinema. Considered one of the major figures of Hong Kong cinema, Woo has directed several notable action films in his adopted home, among them, A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), Hard Boiled (1992), and Red Cliff (2008/2009). He is a winner of the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Picture, as well as a Golden Horse Award, an Asia Pacific Screen Award, and a Saturn Award. Woo's Hollywood films include the action films Hard Target (1993) and Broken Arrow (1996), the sci-fi action thriller Face/Off (1997) and the action spy film Mission: Impossible 2 (2000). He also created the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. He cites his three favorite films as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï. He is the founder and chairman of the production company Lion Rock Productions.

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