Having acquired the rights as part of its acquisition of the Golden Princess library, Shout Studios begins to bring the Hong Kong back catalogue of legendary filmmaker John Woo to 4K Ultra HD in November with the release of deluxe editions of Hard Boiled and the A Better Tomorrow Trilogy in November; check out the […]
Movie Review – The Killer (2024)
The Killer, 2024. Directed by John Woo. Starring Nathalie Emmanuel, Omar Sy, Sam Worthington, Diana Silvers, Éric Cantona, Saïd Taghmaoui, Tchéky Karyo, Grégory Montel, Angeles Woo, Aurélia Agel, Elie Haddad, Hugo Diego Garcia, David Clark, Guillaume Kerbusch, Michaël Erpelding, and Fabrice Scott. SYNOPSIS: An assassin tries to make amends in an effort to restore the […]
John Woo remakes his own 80s classic with The Killer trailer
Peacock has released the trailer for legendary Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo’s remake of his 1989 action-classic The Killer. Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones) stars as the gender-flipped titular assassin made famous by Chow Yun-Fat, who is being pursued by Omar Sy’s persistent detective following an assignment gone awry. Woo directed from a script written […]
Movie Review – Silent Night (2023)
Silent Night, 2023. Directed by John Woo. Starring Joel Kinnaman, Kid Cudi, Harold Torres, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Vinny O’Brien, Yoko Hamamura, Anthony Giulietti, and John Pollack. SYNOPSIS: A tormented father witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve. While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, he […]
The Essential Films of John Woo
Tom Jolliffe offers up an essential John Woo selection… John Woo has been a little quiet of late, but the legendary Hong Kong filmmaker is set to make his Hollywood return this year with his “comeback” movie Silent Night, which has just received its first trailer this week. To the uninitiated, John Woo was once […]
John Woo’s dialogue-free Hollywood return Silent Night sets December release
Legendary action director John Woo is about to make a return to Hollywood after a 20 year absence with Silent Night, an action thriller that will be told entirely without dialogue. It is set for a December 1st release date. Silent Night stars Joel Kinnaman (For All Mankind), Scott Mescudi, most known as rapper Kid Cudi, […]
The Greatest Action Directors of All Time
Tom Jolliffe looks at the greatest action directors of all time… The action genre has never particularly had the greatest respect associated with it. Maybe there’s a feeling that they’re dramatically anaemic, or sometimes intellectually inferior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s a genre that doesn’t always have consistent specialists, because certain directors who […]
Broken Arrow at 25
Tom Jolliffe takes a look back at John Woo’s somewhat forgotten sophomore Hollywood effort, Broken Arrow, which turns 25… Remember Broken Arrow? Memory a bit hazy? Well John Woo’s second Hollywood film, a box office hit at the time, turns 25. In 1996 we were seeing a decided shift away from the kind of heroics […]
The Problems Facing the Face/Off Sequel
Tom Jolliffe on the problems facing a Face/Off sequel almost a quarter of a century on from the original… Even in an ever changing film climate, with theatrical distribution facing unprecedented difficulties when coming out the other side of the global pandemic, the predilection for remakes/reboots/sequels continues. If it worked once it could work again. […]
When a Soundtrack Becomes Beautifully Contrary to Violence on Screen
Tom Jolliffe looks at the effective use of contrarian music in films which show violence… There’s something about a great film soundtrack whether it’s the score or songs (or both). You can have a melancholic drama which will usually be laced with melancholic music. You can have the rousing action adventure with the John Williams […]
