John Woo |
Known as a “master of violence aesthetics”, Woo uses extremely confident methods to permeate the world of violence with an ineffable romance. Filmgoers are often overwhelmed by his gorgeous and well-controlled scenes, refined dialogue and dance-like gunplay action in his films. Woo has explored and extended the language of film art and created his own. He is skilled in expressing emotions through objects, and depicting human friendship and positive relationships between humans and the times they live in beneath the cloak of violence, and bringing human cruelty and goodness, personal fate and the vicissitudes of the times alive on the silver screen.
With A Better Tomorrow in 1985, Woo garnered the 23rd Golden Horse Award for Best Director and the 6th Hong Kong Film Award for Best Feature Film. The Killer in 1989 earned him the 9th Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director. He was invited to Hollywood to direct a collection of films including Hard Target (1993), Broken Arrow (1997) and Face/Off (1997) from 1993, attended the 58th Cannes Film Festival as a member of the jury in 2005, brought out Red Cliff in 2008 and received the “Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement” at the 67th Venice Film Festival in 2010. September 3, 2010 was named “John Woo Day” in recognition of his remarkable contribution to film.