Born in southern China, John Woo grew up in Hong Kong, where he began his film career as an assistant director in 1969, working for Shaw Brothers Studios. After assisting Chang on several films, including Four Riders and Boxer From Shantung, Woo was finally tapped by the rival Golden Harvest Studios to direct his own feature, 1973's The Young Dragons. !Casting News on "Speed Racer" and The Return of Chow Yun Fat!The first Asian filmmaker to helm a major Hollywood feature, John Woo initially emerged as the leading light of the Hong Kong action renaissance of the late '80s. John Woo SBS is a Hong Kong film director, writer, and producer. A Better Tomorrow marked the true emergence of Woo's balletic action style, an aesthetic he continued to hone in films like 1987's A Better Tomorrow II and 1989's masterful The Killer, which became his American breakthrough when released in the U.S. a few years later. John Woo on IMDb: Awards, nominations, and wins. By the early '70s, Woo had been elevated to the position of assistant director under the aegis of the prolific Shaw Brothers Studios. Celebrated for his unique, much-imitated style -- a Molotov cocktail of graceful slow-motion sequences, staccato edits, freeze-frames, and dissolves -- Woo brought a new depth of emotion and visual beauty to the action genre, perfecting an operatic, highly stylized brand of mayhem laced with melodrama, savage wit, and homoerotic undercurrents.Woo was born Wu Yu Sen on May 1, 1946, in the Guangzhou Canton Province of China, his parents relocating the family to Hong Kong three years later to escape life under communism. Get the freshest reviews, news, and more delivered right to your inbox!The Rock Delivers a "Spy Hunter" Update — KindaJohn Woo’s "He-Man" Movie Goes … NowherePaul W.S. At Shaw Brothers, Woo began working under martial arts director Chang Che, whose expressive, emotional brand of action filmmaking left an indelible mark on his protegé. John Woo and Lance Henriksen on the set of the 1993 action thriller Hard Target, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.In a career spanning more than four decades, John Woo – the recently announced recipient of the 2010 Venice Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion – has directed more than 30 features, chiefly in the action genre. With the aid of producer Tsui Hark, Woo was able to mount his longtime pet project, A Better Tomorrow, a fusion of the themes of traditional martial arts tales with the kind of ambivalent protagonists and graphic violence found in Western action films. An innumerable string of low-budget efforts followed, ranging from chop-socky pictures like 1974's The Dragon Tamers and 1975's Hand of Death (Jackie Chan's first major star turn) to the 1975 Chinese opera Princess Chang Ping. John Woo Celebrity Profile - Check out the latest John Woo photo gallery, biography, pics, … His later films, including a pair of efforts shot in Taiwan (1984's The Time You Need a Friend and 1985's Run Tiger Run), had all failed miserably at the box office. Released in 1986, the film was Woo's commercial and critical breakthrough, becoming Hong Kong's top box-office attraction of the year and launching stars Chow Yun Fat and Leslie Cheung into the upper echelon of Eastern film talent. He took a job at a newspaper called the Chinese Student Weekly, learning film theory by stealing books on motion pictures from area libraries and shops.Influenced by Western cinema, Woo grew increasingly dissatisfied with the Hong Kong production industry, and decided to begin making his own films in 1968. Considered one of the major figures of Hong Kong cinema, Woo has direc hongkongi forgatókönyvíró, rendező. John Woo, Director: Ying hung boon sik. The Woos were quite poor, and were homeless for several years. His father, a philosopher, was later hospitalized with tuberculosis for over a decade. At the same time he drew great inspiration from the new breed of American filmmakers including Sam Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick, the hypnotic violence of their work leaving a profound effect.