FILM 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Machismo, Heroic Bloodshed, Yakuza
9 May 2018
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The Killer – John Woo
John Woo (Wu Yusen)
o Influences
o When people talk about John Woo, he has absorbed a wide range of influences
as well as being an influence
o The Wild Bunch - Sam Peckenpaw who is an American director. His use
of spectacular violence influenced John Woo
o Thematic and characterization influence is the French direction Jean
Pierre who directed Le Samourai
o Japanese Yakusa (gangster) films influenced his directed
o Influence on
o He had a massive influence on other Hong Kong action directors
o Huge international influence such as the Matrix and Quentin Teritino
o John Woo
o Poor growing up he experienced gang violence in his neighbourhood first hand
o Education sponsored by Christians and considered becoming a priest
o No film school - self-taught. Not as unusual for a Hong Kong director as it
would be for a Hollywood director
o Cathay Studios, Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest were all important studios
that he has worked with
o "heroic bloodshed" genre - this term was coined for him
o A lot of violence - and yet this bloodshed is heroic and a romantic
element was implemented in it.
o Identified with moral values such as loyalty, friendship and honour
contrasted with crash capitalism
o Response to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong
o Genre was developed in response to this
o UK handed over Hong Kong to China
o His films can be interpreted as a regional allegory
o Value of loyalty and honour is a way of celebrating traditional values and
upholding them in the face of a scary prospect
o Spectacle and montage
o Spectacle - eye candy, visual excess
o Montage - a form of editing that is not necessarily about logic and
realism, but about underpinning spectacle and conveying emotions and
ideas in an aesthetically pleasing and emotional way
o A Better Tomorrow (1986)
o Put John Woo on the map and got a lot of both national and international
attention
o Glorification of gangster
o Intense, balletic violence
o Themes (recur in later work)
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