John Woo Returns to Chinese Film
Min Lee - Associated Press
Jul 02, 2008
HONG KONG - After 16 years directing Hollywood movies, John Woo is returning to Chinese film with an ambitious two-part historical epic that he hopes will also appeal to Western audiences.
"Red Cliff," whose first installment is due out in Asia later this month, is based on a famous battle in divided third-century China that saw 2,000 ships burned, and draws from a storied period in Chinese history that has spawned comic books and video games.
Expectations are high for the movie.
Loaded with Asian stars including past Cannes winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Taiwanese-Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro, and backed by investors from China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Woo says he has already spent more than US$70 million on the project - a huge sum by Asian filmmaking standards.
Hollywood trade publication Variety says the "Red Cliff" is the most expensive Asian production ever.
Critical reception is also at stake for the director, who has not made a full-length movie since two lackluster Hollywood productions - the 2003 sci-fi flick "Paycheck" and the 2002 war film "Windtalkers," which an Associated Press review said "might just be the most unfocused movie John Woo has ever made."
Woo, a Hong Kong native who made hits like "Face/Off" and "Mission: Impossible II," has not directed a Chinese movie since the 1992 action thriller "Hard-Boiled."
It hasn't been an easy transition back to Chinese film.
The main stars of the movie, Leung, and Chow Yun-fat - whom Woo cast as the iconic gun-toting, trench coat-wearing gangster Mark in his 1986 movie "A Better Tomorrow" - backed out at the last minute, although Leung later returned to the cast.
A stuntman died in an accident and torrential rains washed away part of an outdoor set in northern China.
Producer Terence Chang said it took time to navigate the Chinese film industry and for Woo's multinational crew to get used to working with Chinese crew members.
"It's not just the language barrier. They have to get used to each other's culture and thinking," Chang said.
Woo told the AP in an interview that "Red Cliff" involves the biggest scenes he's ever worked on. While "Mission: Impossible II" and "Windtalkers" had budgets exceeding US$100 million, most of that money went to the stars rather than the production itself, he said.
Likening "Red Cliff" to "Gladiator" and "Troy," Woo said the largest scenes in the Chinese movie involved as many as 2,000 actors and crew members and that the two installments include about 1,300 special effects shots.
Woo said he's wanted to make "Red Cliff" since finishing "A Better Tomorrow" but lacked the resources and technological expertise until now.
He also wants to broaden Western understanding of Chinese culture. Outside of Asia, "Red Cliff" will be released as a single, condensed installment in December.
"Although there are a few action movies, Hong Kong movies and kung fu movies that are very popular in the West and did very well at the box office, that's only one part of our culture," Woo said.
Woo's other mission is to bring Hollywood know-how to Chinese movie crews.
"I want to prove to the world through this movie that in China, we also have the ability, talent and endurance to make a Hollywood-style blockbuster," he said.
Some movie critics, however, aren't keen on Woo's latest project.
Grady Hendrix, who writes Variety's blog on Asian entertainment, said Woo is past his creative peak.
"John Woo making 'Red Cliff' is one of those things that can barely make me yawn. There are many better and more interesting projects out there right now," he said.
Tom Vick, a film curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and author of "Asian Cinema," said he's wary of the glut of Chinese historical epics in recent years but hopes Woo can break new ground with "Red Cliff."
"Even his less successful films are done with panache. So I'm hoping he can find something new or interesting to do with this tired genre," Vick said.
Woo plans to make at least another Chinese film - "1949," a romance set against World War II and Chinese civil war - but says he wants to keep working in Hollywood. In the United States he is working on an American remake of the 1969 French film "The Sicilian Clan," a Western, and a movie about Chinese laborers starring Chow Yun-fat.
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Copyright 2008 by Associated Press
