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John Woo’s Unfinished Projects

May 30, 2012

John Woo with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Picture from at least 100 years ago.

It’s been at least two posts since I’ve written about John Woo. He’s been pretty quiet since the release of Red Cliff which still demands a larger fanbase. I think hardcore fans skipped out on it theatrically knowing it wasn’t the full cut and the interest in Chinese epics has dwindled since we are long out of the era of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero. Woo’s slow down in production had me a bit worried, especially after hearing him deny having throat cancer doesn’t help much. He had a tonsil tumor removed before February this year as well and is not getting much progress done on his romance film Love and Let Love. Whether this film gets off the ground or not, it can be placed in the large pile of projects that Woo had put on hold. I’ve tried to make a complete list compiling what is currently in the works and films that are no longer in play.

Kickin’ off with the films that are currently in the lengthy period known as “pre-production”:

John Woo’s Le Samourai

Nearly any article that mentions a mild history of Woo always brings up either Le Samourai or Jean Pierre Melville’s influence on him. It’s hard to overstate, and would make me wonder how Melville would react to such love from directors like Woo or Johnnie To. According to French director Jacques Rivette (who hated Woo’s Face/Off but loves Luc Besson), Melville apparently always wanted to have disciples so I’d suppose he would be proud to have such followers. I don’t think there’s any real reason for Woo to remake Le Samourai as he’s already nipped the best bits of it for The Killer ages back. It would also be an American film which only makes me imagine Nicolas Cage in the Alain Delon role and Rihanna as the nightclub singer. It’d be a big step up from her work in Battleship probably, but we’ll have to wait and see if anything new comes from this project.

John Woo’s Marco Polo

There’s very little information about this one, but Woo is interested in another historical film about Marco Polo, specifically his relationship with Kublai Khan. I’m not Chinese history expert (and neither is Woo from his story in Red Cliff) but from drawings of Kublai, I think Lam Suet should co-star. If he’s working his historical romance now, I think three in a row would be a bit much to ask of Woo. Cut it out with the historical films already.

John Woo’s Flying Tigers

Here’s Woo being slow to the punch again. Zhang Yimou’s Flowers of War was first to be the big popular film that was a Chinese production with an English-language actor (Christian Bale). This could be why it’s been at least a year since we’ve heard anything about Flying Tigers which was about an American Volunteer Group and the 14th Air Force during World War II. This would have been a film starring Tom Cruise which Woo hasn’t worked with since, well, the worst film in the Mission Impossible series. As no one has spoken about this film in quite a while, I can only assume it’s been shoved back. Tom’s very busy doing his hair metal movie anyways.

John Woo’s Youth of the Beast

This one I was the most excited for a number of reasons. First, it’s Woo’s return to the gangster genre, his first since…well, I suppose either Hard Boiled or A Bullet in the Head. Has it been that long? Second, it’s a film that Woo hasn’t already basically done unlike Le Samourai Woo has stated that he is a fan of the Japanese yakuza genre, but hasn’t explicitly noted how Youth of the Beast or any of Seijun Suzuki’s films have influenced him. Lastly, it’s a film that not everyone knows. Youth of the Beast is generally considered higher-tier Suzuki from his fan-base but it’s not quite as popular as Branded to Kill or Tokyo Drifter. The only problem? The film will probably be American as it’s plot now involves a “western outsider” and a two groups of gangsters: Russian and Japanese. Woo’s American films’ aren’t my favourite’s, but I’m still quite curious.

That’s a lot on Woo’s plate so that bastard better get well and get filming as soon as possible. He has left projects off long enough or has turned down films which would’ve have interesting results. Let’s quickly dash through the list of films that Woo has passed up.

John Woo’s King’s Ransom

Anticipating King’s Ransom is nostalgia from the 90s. In a perfect world, this should have been Woo’s first project in the United States as it was reportedly going to star Chow-Yun Fat and be written by the Face/Off writers Michael Colleary and Mike Web. This film has been in talks since the 1990s and Woo has finally given up the idea of directing it. The latest news on King’s Ransom is that it will be directed by Milky Way alumni Patrick Leung who also worked with Woo as a second unit director on The Killer and Red Cliff. In the book John Woo: The Interviews, Woo states the script has changed on King’s Ransom, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing any Face/Off-esque dialouge directly translated to Mandarin anytime soon.

John Woo’s Metroid

Video games aren’t movies. Movies based on things where a protagonist who is generally mute sound like bad things to base your film about. Either way, Woo has purchased the rights to a film version of the Metroid series around 2006. This was pretty shocking for me to hear about at the time as Woo seems to dislike science fiction. He even turned down the original script to Face/Off which he found to be too science fiction oriented in 1993. His only real step into the science fiction arena was in Pay Check which isn’t anyone’s favourite Woo film. No one has really discussed anything about Metroid relating to John Woo since the announcement of him buying the rights to it in the mid-2000s, but I have a hunch that any paper Woo signed relating to this project is gathering dust in a closet.

John Woo’s Goldeneye

I don’t even no the accuracy of this one as the only mention of it I can find is in Christopher Heard’s book Ten Thousand Bullets which has a lot inaccurate information. According to the book, MGM offered Woo a chance to direct GoldenEye in the 1990s even before he signed on to make Broken Arrow which is a nearly forgotten film. Woo apparently took on Broken Arrow as a way to try to learn how to use special effects…so if you’re a fan of pre-Matrix post-Terminator 2 special effects, there’s a copy in a bargain bin somewhere with your name on it. GoldenEye, and the James Bond universe is probably something Woo shouldn’t have tackled in the long run. James Bond is an institution and you can’t really change those films too much and get away with it. Neither the producers nor the James Bond fans would really be happy with that. Woo would’ve been held down by the restraints of what requires a Bond film to be a Bond film at that time and not really get any of his own ideas really placed within it. But it’s still not as strange as the next film Woo had been considering.

John Woo’s Phantom of the Opera

I have just stared at the heading of this section for a minute trying to even think about what to write here. Woo has long pined for the chance to direct a musical film or as he describes it as “his action musical”. There’s little information in this one within the Ten Thousand Bullets book and the John Woo: The Interviews books stating that John Travolta suggested the idea to him. Woo reported that “it somehow didn’t work out”. Even more nuts is Woo was also in the running to direct Chicago, remember that film? No one cares about Chicago anymore. Woo had already signed on to direct Mission Impossible 2 at that time, so there was no chance of going through with it.

Woo’s a director with a long history mixed with rumors, classics and films ideas that need to be done as soon as possible. I don’t know how ill Woo may really be, but I’m hoping for good news and good films in the future. In the meantime, I’m going to see if Paul Verhoeven is planning to make another film before he turns 100.

6 Comments | alain delon, chow-yun fat, hong kong, james bond, jean-claude van damme, john travolta, john woo, johnnie to, luc besson, nicolas cage, paul verhoeven, Uncategorized | Permalink

Vote in the Lovehkfilm.com best films of the 1980s!

February 25, 2012

1980s Hong Kong Flag

Greetings and Salutations to all who read this still. Just a quick post before I get into lengthy discussions on the merits of the films of Rudy Ray Moore. If you like action films, you are bound to like Asian cinema. If you like Asian cinema, you know it goes beyond action films. To help expand the word on Hong Kong cinema, I am promoting one of my favourite film sites,Lovehkfilm.com. The reviews are humorous, self-aware and escape all types of fan-boy knee-jerk reactions that sometimes occur with such country or genre specific film sites.

One of the features on the Lovehkfilm.com I frequently return to is their Best of the Decades polls which readers nominate their best films of the decade. It’s a good reference for those taking their first baby-steps into Hong Kong cinema and for seasoned vets who need to seek out the more forgotten titles. The site has already done lists for the the top 100 of the 1990s and the top 50 of the 2000s and are currently doing one for the 1980s. If you have an e-mail, you can vote so it’s easy as just following the instructions here. Be sure to take time and think of not just films you think are obviously the best but films you think that deserve more respect or support. I’m looking forward to the results and hearing about what your votes are. Be quick though as the poll closes on February 29th. Get out and vote!!

That’s all for now, I’ll try to get back to real posts on my own content sometime in the near future. Get out and vote!

2 Comments | 1980s, hong kong | Permalink

Wong Fei Hung’s Whip that Smacks the Candle

October 13, 2011

School is hard. Going to school while doing part-time work at the school is harder. Living far away from the school to complete all these things is the hardest of them all. Not only did I miss screenings of Missing in Action 1 + 2 at the Mayfair this month due to education interfering, I’ve found myself unable to even find time to blog. How horrid!

I refuse to put a blog on hiatus, so I’m going to try and provide bite-size posts inbetween the longer more visual ones (i.e:good posts). I was previously working on a post involving a good overview of the action films selected by the Hong Kong Film Archive for their list of “100 Must-See Hong Kong Movies”. That list had some strange choices (Dirty Ho over The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) and several Wong-Kar Wai films, but no Chungking Express. It’s an interesting overview at least to see how Hong Kong film experts feel are the classics compared to us Western fans.

Back to the point, I worked on a blog post that began to become a pain as I continued to try and write it. To cut it short, I’ll write about the one interesting looking film that I’ve never heard of before. Let’s watch martial arts films from the 1940s with Wong Fei Hung’s Whip that Smacks the Candle (1949).

Don’t believe me? This film is actually making rounds theatrically at festivals:

No actual candle smacking in this clip

Compare the pacing in this film to this film to anything else from the 1940s, and this is lightning fast with surprisingly competent choreography. The film was directed by Wu Pang who was previously known for making melodramas. His Wong Fei Hung’s Whip that Smacks the Candle was a big hit in Hong Kong and received a followup with an equally boss title: Wong Fei Hung Burns the Tyrant’s Lair which was also a hit.

My own reseach doesn’t tell me what Wu Pang followed these up with, but I personally like to assume his later films still involved Wong Fei Hung doing more things: Wong Fei Hung goes to Shanghai or Wong Fei Hung builds his Dream Home. Probably not the case, but someone with a better knowledge of Hong Kong films before the 1960s can help you out with that.

This film does not seem to be available on YesAsia or Amazon, but the internet savy among you will find ways to watch this. I know I will.

3 Comments | hong kong | Permalink

Heroes Among Heroes Review

August 27, 2011

Why did I take so long to write about Heroes Among Heroes? I should have whipped out this review a month ago! It could be that I left the screening a bit frustrated. Quick story: When I was rushing to get to the theater, I was parked less than a block away. What I didn’t take into account was that we would be getting the worst downpour of rain that night. I can suffer running through a storm but what I didn’t realize was that my iPhone would be caught in the rain and all of a sudden, have no audio when I tried to make a call! Quick Google searching later let me find out that if water gets near an iPhone’s headphone socket, it makes your phone think it is constantly connected in headphone mode. The Solution: Place your phone in a pack of rice overnight. Worked for me as it absorbed all the water out of that thing!

Regardless of being phoneless for a day, I had quite an enjoyable time watching a nice print of Heroes Among Heroes. It’s not the best Yuen-Woo Ping film, but it was good to see my faith in Yuen still last after a disappointing screening of True Legend. The story cribs a bit from other popular Hong Kong films of the era such as the Once Upon a Time in China series, but 1993 was a year of excess when it came to those kinds of films film. How much excess? There were over five Hong Kong films revolving around the Wong Fei Hong character! Not only that, but at least three of them were worked on by Yuen-Woo Ping. Talk about milking it! Imagine if next year there were five Robin Hood films and they were all directed or produced by Ridley Scott. Madness!

How did Yuen-Woo Ping not die of exhaustion? The Hong Kong Film Archive and Hong Kong Cinemagic websites state he was not alone in directing these, as Chan Chin-Chung is also credited as a director. Who the hell is he though? This seems to Chan’s only film credit. Joining him in a one-time only role is Yuk Wong who co-starring alongside Donnie Yen as the role of Wong Fei Hong himself. Then much like Chan: nothing ever again! It doesn’t really matter as it’s Donnie Yen as Beggar So who is the real star of the film. In fact, I think even Ng Man Tat (lots of “wasn’t that the coach from Shaolin Soccer?” after the screening) and Sheila Chan take up a large amount of the screentime. Sheila has some embarrassing prosthetic teeth in this film…people gasped in the audience when they first saw her pearly whites.

Prepare to see these chompers quite a bit when sitting down to Heroes Among Heroes

Both Sheila and Ng Man Tat both have a good amount of screen time for their comedy scenes. If you aren’t a fan of the comedy relief in Yuen Woo-Ping’s other films, this won’t change your mind. Personally, I found it forgettable outside the visual memory of her teeth.

Regardless of how you feel about the comedy, you have to appreciate a film that has a subtitle that attempts to explain the play-on-words as shown below

Ng-Man Tat says this during the film…apparently!

Despite a confusing production history and joke-explaining subtitles, Heroes Among Heroes is an entertaining if lesser picture from Yuen Woo-Ping. The anti-drug PSA themed opium tale is not nearly as memorable as the more popular Iron Monkey also from 1993. On the other hand, we get the bonus of not having any child actors which is a definite downside to Iron Monkey for me. Kids ruin everything.

Many of the action scenes during the first half of Heroes Among Heroes are far too short. By the time you’ve asked yourself “was that it?” the characters are already on to their location. The later action scenes, are more extended and extravagant. These scenes include Donnie Yen fighting a member of the Red Lotus group which involves Donnie dodging the rivals long hair used as a fighting extension. Another strong action scene involves Chan Chin-Chung who sits at a dinner table and has a seated kung-fu battle…with his fist on fire! Perhaps he burnt his bad so badly that he didn’t want to do another film again?

What any man would do when they light their hand on fire.

If the above sounded interesting, I’m unhappy to report that Heroes Among Heroes has not been treated kindly on home video. Two Region 1 DVDs of the film have been released with one under the title Fist of the Red Dragon which is only available in an English dub. I’m feeling especially lucky now to have caught an actual film print. In comparison to much of Hong Kong’s modern day output, this film feels a lot stronger than it probably ever did in 1993. If you need something that has the Iron Monkey and Fong Sai Yuk kind of flavor, you might just find it in Heroes Among Heroes…that is if you aren’t bored about another tale of Wong Fei Hong.

2 Comments | 1990s, donnie yen, hong kong, yuen woo-ping | Tagged: heroes among heroes | Permalink

The Suspect Review

June 27, 2011

Ringo Lam’s The Suspect (1998)

Now that I have your attention with the image, I have to ask, what happened to Ringo Lam? He vanished off the face of the earth after for a few years after a string of Van Damme films in the early 2000s, than returned for briefly for a project with Tsui Hark and Johnnie To for Triangle which no one really talks about too much. And then nothing. Twitch reports that Ringo Lam has given his first camera interview in ten years in a French documentary titled Tarantino: The Disciple of Hong Kong, but I doubt that interview will go into too much detail about his absence but discuss the comparison between City on Fire and Resevoir Dogs for the 400th time.

On that note, It’s a good excuse to look at one of Ringo’s films that I’ve forgotten I had in my DVD collection. I don’t even really remember buying The Suspect so it must have been a gift, a prize or someone lent it to me without me returning it. Regardless, it doesn’t hurt to investigate. The Susepct is about Don Lee (Louis Koo) who has been released from prison after serving about 12 years. Don wants to start a new crime-free life but is met with an old friend Max (Julian Cheung) who wants him to continue his work for the mob by assassinating the popular candidate in an upcoming election. Lee refuses which leads Cheung to pull the job himself using the same type of weapon left for Lee (the bazooka seen above!). This leads the police to believe that Don is the suspect as he is chased down by both the cops and his former friends.

I’ll keep it short and quick with this one. The Suspect is kind of dull. Both Julian Cheung and Louis Koo don’t have the charisma to breathe life into their roles that someone like Chow Yun Fat brought for Ringo’s earlier films such as Prison on Fire or Full Contact. Even if you factor out Chow, compare both Koo and Cheung to Simon Yam who plays the aspiring political candidate / triad leader in the film and you can see how the two are outshone by someone in a smaller role. Does Koo even change his facial expression?

The Suspect is also saddled with a pretty typical plot that lacks a lot of energy you’d expect form Hong Kong films. Perhaps he was influenced by his work in the United States Maximum Risk, but the plot feels kind of “quickie-American” thriller. At least half the film is in English at that as well so what does that leave us with? It’s a film that lacks Hong Kong flavour and it’s pretty damn average. Don’t expect a re-release on blu-ray anytime soon.

2 Comments | 1990s, hong kong, ringo lam, simon yam | Permalink