John Woo Interview

The good people over at Undergroundrepublik (my cousins site check it out!) recently interviewed John Woo (Hard Boiled, Face Off, Mission Impossible 2) while he was promoting Red Cliff in Canada – Red Cliff is definitely one of my top 10 films of 2009. Check out some of the results below, you can read the full interview here.

Why did you decide to make a film about this specific battle and how did the novel ‘the romance  of    the three kingdoms’ influence it?

John Woo: I grew up with the story and admired many of the heroes, I’ve wanted to make this movie for over 20 years. It’s one of the most famous battles in China’s history and the story is a very inspiring one. The battle shows how a smaller army can defeat a larger and more powerful enemy through the combination of teamwork, intelligence and courage, so I think it could be made into a very encouraging movie. I’ve been studying this part of history since I was a kid and I have learned so much from it. There are quite a few characters, like Zhou Yu, the one who is saving a little baby in the middle of battle, that soldier was so brave, so loyal and he was a great warrior, since I admired him so much, I decided to use it in the final scene of Hardboiled when Chow Yun Fat is admist all the gunfire and saving a baby(laughs). The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a very old novel from China and it is fiction but it is a great story that I have known since I was a child and it is very well known in china, it is a beautiful piece that inspired me heavily.

What advice can you recommend to young film makers?

John Woo: Just to keep making films, never stop and you must be yourself, I am so excited to see new film makers and I love all the new styles that are coming out. The most important thing is to believe in yourself.

What’s your next big project?

John Woo: I am working on so many projects, one is called Flying Tiger, it’s going to be a big Hollywood movie. It’s about the friendship between the Chinese and American pilots in World War 2 and how they helped win and it’s going to have lots of action. We are still working on the script and want to film it next year in both China and America. I am also working on a remake of Melville’s “Le Samourai” then also I’m working to make The Killer as a producer. I think it’s going to be directed by a Korean director, John Lee, a very talented young director. It’ll be an American movie, all in English, and I also want to do a Marco Polo movie.