The Cinematic DNA of John Woo

If Don Johnson walked onto the set of John Woo's The Killer with a dodgy grey and white striped suit with dark grey vest and black shoes, you could easily assume that this was another episode of his hit TV show Miami Vice. Indeed, when the camera pans out on a neon encrusted city landscape it is hard not to think that as the soundtrack starts, you're somewhat disappointed that Jan Hammer isn't behind the synthesizers to belt out the evocative theme tune.

The opening couldn't be more indicative of 1980s Hong Kong in it's huge skyscrapers lighting up the night sky with neon lights before we are taken into a somewhat more modest church, candlelit and with statues and scaffolding and not forgetting the doves. This is the perfect place for the hired hitman Ah Jong to be found and to be given his next assignment. It is meant to represent a sanctuary from the world he lives in. Asked whether he is religious, Ah Jong refutes this by saying "I just like the tranquility of the place." It is with this that we are about to see the carnage unfold.

John Woo had got his big break thanks to being an assistant director to Chang Cheh. A director known to be The Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema. Although somewhat of an outsider thanks to being born in mainland China in Shanghai in 1923, he had helped create the breakaway with mainland Chinese cinema with it's use of Cantonese instead of Mandarin which was seen as the norm in China. A very prolific director, Cheh would direct up to 8 movies a year such as The New One Armed Swordsman, Duel of Fists and The Anonymous Heroes. He was versatile in that his films ranged from swordplay films, kung-fu, modern period dramas and lavish costume epics. After some mild success in film and theatre in mainland China, he was offered a chance to make a film with a Cathay star Li Mei. This was brought about from the success of the film The Cruel Heart of My Man which Cheh had written. The film, Wild Fire, failed to gain much attention in the Hong Kong film industry. He then took to writing film reviews for a Taiwanese newspaper using pseudonyms to air his thoughts on films that were going round.

Indeed it is this extensive use of pseudonyms that make it difficult for any researcher trying to research into the man behind the movies. Not only were his newspaper articles under pseudonyms but frequently, so were his movies. Which, in effect causes a perfect smokescreen for which much as we try to delve deeper into the man behind the films, we are left infuriated by the incomplete history at worst, inconsistent at best.

As the body count increases with rounds upon rounds of bullets being pumped into the enemy, one sees the graceful synchronisation from which Ah Jong could kill and then almost telepathically see his next enemy turn the corner, swivel round and pump more rounds of bullets into them.

Much of Woo's work is deeply influenced by Jean Pierre Melville to whom he referred to as his god when it came to the cinema. Melville made such films as Le Cercle Rouge, Un Flic and Bob Le Flambeur and while they don't have the same amount of cartoon violence that is evident in a John Woo film, they appeal and inform his characters. There is a sort of unspoken code of ethics with which Melville's characters work. In the documentary, Crossings, he spoke of chivalry and the code of honour which a hitman must follow. In the same documentary he is very much in awe of Alain Delon who worked with Melville from Le Samourai up until his last movie, Un Flic. The highest compliment for an actor such as Chow Yun Fat is to be told that the way he holds a gun as elegantly as Alain Delon does and even Clint Eastwood.

For John Woo though, cinema was an escape. He had two options if he wanted to escape; there was either the church or the theatre. The movie theatres would always give hope because he felt every morning when he woke up, he had to grab hold of something and use it as a weapon because he would get punched and kicked and ambushed while going anywhere. The need to protect oneself is a constant theme in his films and the gun is an extension of the human body with which to shield oneself with. Hence we'll see round after round of ammunition pumped into the bad guys stomachs, head, shoulders, kneecaps and ankles whereas the 'good guys' seem to take in a magnitude of bullets and still be able to walk and fire weapons as if they were just an insignificant scratch that they can ignore at their will.

With The Killer, John Woo made his international calling card for which Hollywood would take up and provide funding for big action epics such as Broken Arrow, Face Off and Mission Impossible 2. His action films have a certain code of conduct and chivalry for which they must all adhere to. They have influenced the likes of Quentin Tarantino and many more. His camera style, particularly in The Killer is full of the by then, clichéd slow motion shots being intercut by the same action happening again and again through different angles and at slightly different speeds and of course, one mustn't forget the doves in John Woo's films. With so much conflict, the doves are seen as the need for inner peace with which to main characters crave desperately. Notice again the opening shot of Ah Jong in the church in The Killer. Such is his life that the only sanctuary he could find was the church and it perhaps mirrors one half of John Woo's personality as it was the church that helped keep him sane along with movies. With an audience in America, he could continue doing what he loves - making movies so that he can shoot a film or shoot a scene in order for the good guy to be involved in a shoot-'em-up. That's what movies are all about.