John Woo came out sporting a nice suit after the screening and sat down for his interview with Dennis Bartok. The applause was loud and distinct, showing the appreciation these people had for the works of Woo. Some of the interesting facts that I learned was that before Chow Yun-Fat was known for the gunslinger action films of John Woo, he was a TV show star that had many film flops. That when A BETTER TOMORROW started filming, Chow Yun-Fat wasn't going to be in it due to scheduling problems. But when it all worked out for the both of them, Chow Yun-Fat only had a small role. Woo liked him so much, that he expanded the role to give him some more light. Also, another interesting tidbit about THE KILLER was that it originally was going to be a detective story, but for some reason, the studio was against it and thought the idea was boring.

[9:45 PM] HARD BOILED Right after the Q&A, my buddies and I rushed out of the theater to get back into line for the HARD BOILED screening. To my surprise, there were two huge lines going into the theater. Obviously, this was going to be the biggest night of the festival and most packed.

HARD BOILED has always been my favorite film out of everything Woo had done. Simply due to the fact that it was the first film that introduced me to his works. I remember sitting there, laying on my bed and watching it on my tiny Mitsubishi television. There is totally a different experience watching it on the big screen. Never before had Chow Yun-Fat came alive in front of my eyes.

Before the screening, John Woo came out once again to introduce the picture. This turned out to be one of the most informative interviews for the weekend. Originally, HARD BOILED was based on a true story of a killer who killed babies by poisoning baby food. As he got more into the pre-production of the film, though, he decided to change the idea because he was afraid he might influence more people do this. Another anecdote he told was that in all the times he's been making films, that there were only a few times that anybody ever got hurt. Tony Leung in HARD BOILED was hurt in the scene with Philip Kwok as they were gun fighting through the hospital. Supposedly, their budget was pretty low and they couldn't afford to buy fake class as they jumped through the windows in the room. Unfortunately, Leung got a tiny bit of class in his eyes and couldn't see for a few days.

It wasn't fake glass they were jumping through!?!? Madness!

Saturday, April 20

[5:00 PM] BULLET IN THE HEAD In all honesty, being the big John Woo fan that I was, I had never seen BULLET IN THE HEAD. I had owned the DVD for a really long time now and had taken it for granted, letting it sit on my DVD shelf collecting dust. But in many ways, I'm kind of glad that I always slacked off about it. I got to experience it for the first time on the big screen. And what an experience!

After the screening, John Woo had talked about his influences on the film: Martin Scorsese's MEAN STREETS and the events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Another fascinating bit was that Chow Yun-Fat personally asked Woo to be in it, but Woo had already had Tony Leung in mind for the role.

At the end of the Q&A I made my move towards John Woo. A swarm of people had stormed and surrounded him like the night before to meet the man himself. I used my ninja abilities to get closer to him and I introduced myself. Somewhere in my nervous speech, I had said, "Hi, I'm Jimmy, I interviewed you two weeks ago, remember?" John Woo recognized my voice and name and quickly gave me a hand shake and a hug. It was a pretty cool feeling since I had been excited to see him for such a long time. I'm telling you, John Woo is a just a big bear and the kindest guy you'll ever run into, always smiling and always excited with interested eyes.

[8:30 PM] FACE / OFF John Woo came out and introduced the FACE / OFF and basically talked about how much he enjoyed working with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta and how they are his favorite actors to work with in Hollywood. He talked about how he's excited about getting Nicolas Cage and Chow Yun-Fat together for his next project since Cage is a huge fan of Yun-Fat's. Both the screenwriters of FACE / OFF were in attendance as well and I found out an interesting tidbit that they had also penned the TOMB RAIDER script.

Post Festival Thoughts
After the show was over, it was pretty sad. I had a pretty exciting time and weekend revisiting the films of John Woo. The American Cinematheque are so cool for throwing this event and only reassured me that John Woo has a place in the hearts of the American movie-going public. The festival also hyped me even more for Woo's newest film, WINDTALKERS, which should hit the theaters around June. It's always so exciting following the works of a director you admire as he releases them, almost as if the wait between films was all worth it just to sit in a dark theater for 2 hours.

In the midst of all the excitement, my buddies and I got hungry and ate at ROSCOE'S CHICKEN AND WAFFLES. There is nothing like belly full of Roscoe's Chicken to compliment a John Woo tribute.

Related Links:
American Cinematheque
http://www.americancinematheque.com

The Official Windtalkers Site
http://www.mgm.com/windtalkers/