KingsOfKings
𝔻𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞 𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕥
From The Killer’s church shootout to Mission: Impossible 2’s motorcycle chase, John Woo’s over-the-top action style has been the stuff of legend for many decades, but now, at 77, the Hong Kong filmmaker has changed up his approach, beginning with the virtually dialogue-free revenge thriller Silent Night.
The Joel Kinnaman-led actioner is Woo’s first American film in two decades, an absence he chalks up to no longer being sent quality scripts. On its surface, Silent Night is a classic tale of vengeance, as Kinnaman’s Brian Godlock stops at nothing to avenge the gang-related death of his 7-year-old son. The quest is made all the more intriguing by Godlock’s inability to speak, having suffered a life-altering injury during his failed attempt to go after the offending gang in the immediate aftermath of his son’s death.
Silent Night moviegoers are undoubtedly going to enjoy plenty of Woo-directed mayhem, but it’s a bit more restrained by his standards. The first half of the movie dives into Kinnaman’s character’s grief and DIY assassin training, which allows the second half’s bloodshed to be earned. Overall, Woo is now more interested in action from a character and dramatic standpoint rather than action for the sake of action
The biggest difference for me now is that the action should be realistic. It should serve the drama. In the past, my action was pretty much supposed to be entertaining,” Woo tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Silent Night’s action looks more realistic and more powerful, and it gives the audience more of a feeling instead of just being entertaining
Silent Night is another team-up between Lionsgate and producer Basil Iwanyk’s Thunder Road. The two companies are also responsible for the John Wick franchise, which proudly wears its John Woo influences on its sleeve. The filmmaker is delighted that a new generation of filmmakers borrow from him in the same way that he adopted the methods of Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick and Jean-Pierre Melville.
“It’s quite flattering. I appreciate it when I see some other young filmmakers take inspiration from my films, and it makes me feel happy. It is a nice thing not only culturally, but it shares good technique with each other. Some of them even work better than me, so I feel happy,” Woo says.
A sequel to one of Woo’s most beloved films, Face/Off, is currently in development from Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, and it intends to somehow resume the story of Nicolas Cage and John Travolta’s characters. For Woo, he never imagined the Castor Troy (Cage) and Sean Archer (Travolta) story would ever continue. Instead, he preferred to take the premise elsewhere.
“I once thought that if I ever had a chance to make a Face/Off sequel, I would like it to star two female characters. Two women exchange faces to do something. So I suggested it to the studio, but they didn’t pay much attention to it,” Woo admits.
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Woo also explains why he’s reimagining his celebrated 1989 film, The Killer, with a new take starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy.
What made this the right time to come back to the States for the first time in two decades?
Well, 20 years ago, after I made Paycheck, I couldn’t get a better script. So I went back to China to make two or three big-budget movies, but it all didn’t work well. So that made me come back to America to take another try, and I got a script called Silent Night. I was so excited. It’s the kind of script I’d been looking for a long time. I’d been established as a big-budget director, and so they never sent me any good smaller-scale scripts. I’m also not American, so it is hard for me to make anything involved with American history. But when I came back here and read Silent Night, I was so excited by the real challenge of doing a movie without dialogue.
Had you wanted to try a dialogue-free action film for quite some time?
Yes, I’ve wanted to have less dialogue in an action movie. I always liked actors like Steve McQueen. They don’t say much, but they are powerful. So I was looking for that, but no dialogue was very new to me. I didn’t expect it. So the movie made me create a new technique to tell a story. The good thing about a movie without dialogue is that it allowed me to use the visuals and the sound to express myself and tell a much better story.
The Joel Kinnaman-led actioner is Woo’s first American film in two decades, an absence he chalks up to no longer being sent quality scripts. On its surface, Silent Night is a classic tale of vengeance, as Kinnaman’s Brian Godlock stops at nothing to avenge the gang-related death of his 7-year-old son. The quest is made all the more intriguing by Godlock’s inability to speak, having suffered a life-altering injury during his failed attempt to go after the offending gang in the immediate aftermath of his son’s death.
Silent Night moviegoers are undoubtedly going to enjoy plenty of Woo-directed mayhem, but it’s a bit more restrained by his standards. The first half of the movie dives into Kinnaman’s character’s grief and DIY assassin training, which allows the second half’s bloodshed to be earned. Overall, Woo is now more interested in action from a character and dramatic standpoint rather than action for the sake of action
The biggest difference for me now is that the action should be realistic. It should serve the drama. In the past, my action was pretty much supposed to be entertaining,” Woo tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Silent Night’s action looks more realistic and more powerful, and it gives the audience more of a feeling instead of just being entertaining
Silent Night is another team-up between Lionsgate and producer Basil Iwanyk’s Thunder Road. The two companies are also responsible for the John Wick franchise, which proudly wears its John Woo influences on its sleeve. The filmmaker is delighted that a new generation of filmmakers borrow from him in the same way that he adopted the methods of Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick and Jean-Pierre Melville.
“It’s quite flattering. I appreciate it when I see some other young filmmakers take inspiration from my films, and it makes me feel happy. It is a nice thing not only culturally, but it shares good technique with each other. Some of them even work better than me, so I feel happy,” Woo says.
A sequel to one of Woo’s most beloved films, Face/Off, is currently in development from Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, and it intends to somehow resume the story of Nicolas Cage and John Travolta’s characters. For Woo, he never imagined the Castor Troy (Cage) and Sean Archer (Travolta) story would ever continue. Instead, he preferred to take the premise elsewhere.
“I once thought that if I ever had a chance to make a Face/Off sequel, I would like it to star two female characters. Two women exchange faces to do something. So I suggested it to the studio, but they didn’t pay much attention to it,” Woo admits.
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Woo also explains why he’s reimagining his celebrated 1989 film, The Killer, with a new take starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy.
What made this the right time to come back to the States for the first time in two decades?
Well, 20 years ago, after I made Paycheck, I couldn’t get a better script. So I went back to China to make two or three big-budget movies, but it all didn’t work well. So that made me come back to America to take another try, and I got a script called Silent Night. I was so excited. It’s the kind of script I’d been looking for a long time. I’d been established as a big-budget director, and so they never sent me any good smaller-scale scripts. I’m also not American, so it is hard for me to make anything involved with American history. But when I came back here and read Silent Night, I was so excited by the real challenge of doing a movie without dialogue.
Had you wanted to try a dialogue-free action film for quite some time?
Yes, I’ve wanted to have less dialogue in an action movie. I always liked actors like Steve McQueen. They don’t say much, but they are powerful. So I was looking for that, but no dialogue was very new to me. I didn’t expect it. So the movie made me create a new technique to tell a story. The good thing about a movie without dialogue is that it allowed me to use the visuals and the sound to express myself and tell a much better story.
‘Silent Night’ Director John Woo Explains Why He’s Dialed Back His Signature Action Style
After decades away from Hollywood, the action maestro is back to talk his new feature — and his thoughts on the upcoming 'Face/Off' continuation.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
