by JB
For today’s Junesploitation theme, you cannot do better than this pair of John Woo masterpieces.
I was trying to remember when I was first introduced to the films of John Woo.
Was it in 1989 and 1992 when the films were first released in the USA? Did I see them at the Music Box Theater or at the late, lamented Fine Arts Theater on Michigan Avenue, across the street from the Art Institute? Were they part of a Foreign Film Discussion series that my friend Dale and I briefly hosted at five area libraries? Could it have been that my introduction to these films were their debut on Criterion Collection LaserDisc, packed with special features? My memory fails me.
I may not remember the circumstances of my first viewing, but I will forever remember the films themselves. It’s as if John Woo took the best of Asian pop culture, the films of Akira Kurosawa, and 1970s kung-fu cinema and combined it with the best of Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese. These films are Asian fusion, not on a plate but on your theater screen: stylized, thoughtful, compelling, and very, very violent. They're the whole package.
The Killer (1989)
Hitman Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) decides to retire after one last job (perhaps because he has seen so many movies in which criminals and hitmen all have this same idea.) Unfortunately, this last job goes spectacularly wrong and leads to a bloody shoot-out in a crowded restaurant where a young girl named Jenni (Sally Yeh) is accidently blinded. Ah Jong feels responsible and begins to follow Jenni, attending her nightclub performances and even silently watching her in her apartment. After he saves her from being mugged one night, Jenni invites him in, and the two form a friendship.
Police Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is demoted after an undercover sting operation also goes spectacularly wrong. Li begins to suspect Ah Jong is a criminal after noticing him at a crime scene; Li begins to follow Ah Jong while Ah Jong is following Jenni. It’s almost comical. Ah Jong learns that Jenni’s sight can be restored through an expensive operation. He decides to perform one last hit to pay for her surgery. Will his truly "last hit" go spectacularly wrong?
Hard-Boiled (1992)
Police Detective “Tequila” Yuen (Chow-Yun Fat) sees his partner killed when a stake-out of some gun smugglers goes spectacularly wrong and leads to a bloody shoot-out in a criminal warehouse. Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is a Triad hitman who attracts the attention of Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong) who tries to recruit him. When Alan’s initiation goes spectacularly wrong and results in a bloody shoot-out, Tequila learns that he is actually an undercover cop. The two agree to fight together against Wong and his number-two, Mad Dog (Philip Kwok). What could possibly go spectacularly wrong?
Woo stylizes all the action sequences into slow-motion fever dreams of carnage. Guns hold an infinite amount of ammunition and bodies fly through the air, propelled by the sheer exuberance of Woo’s direction and editing. Although I think his biggest influences were Kurosawa, Peckinpah, and Scorsese, Woo has said in interviews that
The Killer is his tribute to Scorsese and French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville.
Besides the extended, balletic action sequences, one thing I have always loved in Woo’s crime films is the notion that the good guy and bad guy are the same guy. From Ah Jong and Li Ying in
The Killer to John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in
Face/Off, this a key theme Woo keeps circling back to, and it’s always fascinating. It reminds me a bit of John Ford’s
The Searchers, which suggests that John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards and Henry Brandon’s war-chief Scar are essentially the same, which is why they hate each other so much. This is much more fascinating as a character study than formulaic Hollywood’s Pure Good Vs. Pure Evil.
Thanks for the subtlety and insight, John Woo... and thanks for the bullets.
No comments:
Post a Comment