| Knights Errant: The Films of John Woo & Chow Yun Fat (Part 1) By Bob Carroll kamera.co.uk |
Chivalry /'shiv(e)lri/ noun 1. the system, spirit, or customs of medieval knighthood. 2. the
qualities e.g. courage, integrity, and consideration, of an ideal knight. 3. archaic a. knights. b.
mounted men at arms. John Woo told the Bright Lights film journal why he picked Chow Yun-Fat as the third lead for
his comeback film: "When we did the casting for A Better Tomorrow, I had in my mind's eye what I wanted. I wanted a
modern knight. Someone with a real personality and human qualities. I read in the paper that he did a lot of work with
orphans. This is what I was looking for. A strong man with a good heart. The image he portrayed to me was one of Cary
Grant, Clint Eastwood, Alain Delon, or Humphrey Bogart. I can see all of these characteristics in him." Woo was born in
China but moved to Hong Kong at an early age due to illness. His life was reliant on the charity of others; the financial
sacrifices his parents made to keep him healthy, cash and clothes from American relations, education by a Lutheran
Church, and introduction to alternative European cinema by his college friends. Deciding that filmmaking was his vocation,
he wanted to relate his ingrained values of true heroics. For Woo, those who are just and charitable, considerate and
spirited, were the protagonists he wanted to portray in his cinema. His only stumbling block was the HK movie industry. The
high volume of martial arts and swordplay flicks the city churned out granted him twelve busy years in which to develop his
directorial skills, but the genre-specific requirements of the studios allowed him limited creative freedom. It was producer
Tsui Hark who allowed him stylistic liberty to remake True Colours of a Hero (1967) as a modern day triad epic. The casting
of the two brothers who would give the thriller its emotional depth were set in stone, but Woo was allowed to pick his third
lead for the role of the fun loving, unstoppable Mark Gor, and more importantly shift this character's personality to suit his
own thematic concerns. Woo had found his knight. In 1986 Chow Yun-Fat was allegedly considered box office poison. He
was a TV star who had failed to crossover to the big screen. During the 70s he had made a name for himself on the TV
show Shanghai Town (1976 onwards) as a romantic lead. Movies, however, proved to be much more difficult: his fame
could get them made, but his name couldn't get the punters to buy tickets. Before his first collaboration with John Woo on A
Better Tomorrow, his sole cinematic success had been The Story of Wu Viet (1981). His fortunes were about to change.
Throughout its production, A Better Tomorrow (1986) was considered little more than a comeback vehicle for ageing hero Ti
Lung, and a big screen calling card for pop star Leslie Cheung. Chow's role as Mark, Lung's ice-cool partner, whose act of
vengeance leaves him crippled, was a secondary concern to Hark. Yet from the opening moment, Woo gives this character
the most optically potent introduction; waiting alone in the middle of the street like some knight errant awaiting his next
crusade, his armour a long grey trench coat, his visor an impenetrable pair of shades. For the film that allegedly invented
the Heroic Bloodshed cycle, it is critical that the key actor of "gun-fu" is also the focus of the scene that crystallizes Woo's
stylistic concerns. Chow gracefully dances through a restaurant with a girl on his arm, the slow motion showing both his
patience and his cunning; he is hiding spare automatics in the flowerpots outside the room where the gang he is about to
dispatch in a piñata of red mayhem are dining en masse. After Chow looks his opponents in the eye, Woo cranks the
camera down to normal speed, and Chow opens fire with two guns. With those few frames action cinema was set on a
new course. Woo said he stole this image from Westerns, it being the only practical way he could allow his hero to outdraw
a dozen men. It is telling that Woo's first successful experiment with this composition of carnage was in collaboration with
his newfound leading man, Chow Yun Fat. Encouraged by the critical and commercial success of this partnership, Woo set
out to make what was destined to become the masterpiece of the genre, The Killer (1989), starring Chow as the
eponymous assassin. Tsui Hark had other plans, deciding to reunite the ensemble of A Better Tomorrow for a sequel,
despite the fact that Chow's character had died in a hail of bullets before the credits rolled. Characterised by a mish-mash
of subplots, new characters and extraneous sequences, A Better Tomorrow II (1987) was clearly the work of a creative
director with little concentration on the work in hand. Apart from during his now-trademarked sequences of orchestrated
pandemonium, the sequel sees Woo grudgingly marking time. The director only seems to come alive during Chow's
Lazarus-style resurrection. The narrative conceit that facilitates the star's return is the old "estranged twin brother" routine,
but the way in which Woo treats this cliché is the film's sole moment of directorial invention. We are reminded of Chow's
late incarnation by a series of comic book-esque paintings that recreate the indelible images of him from the original film.
We then see the familiar looking Ken who, unlike his doppelganger, is alive and well in New York City. Woo takes the visual
grammar of the comic book, a literary form which sees its protagonists coming back to life month after month, and uses it to
reintroduce his favourite star in a sequence which manages to be inventive, touching, mythologizing and direct. Chow, given
this new lease of life, proceeds to treat the rest of the film as a kind of long-winded joke, happily laughing through the
expositionary dialogue and playing up to the camera. His upstaging antics are matched only by Steve McQueen's
deliciously distracting hat-fiddling in The Magnificent Seven (1960) - perhaps appropriate given the heavy influence of
westerns on John Woo's filmmaking. Woo also steals a motif from Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967):
Chow's character episodically assumes items from his dead brother's wardrobe of shades, trenchcoat and guns as the
story progresses, in the same way that The Man With No Name pieces together his poncho, cheroot and mule during the
progress of his third adventure. In many ways The Killer, Woo and Chow's third collaboration, is such an accepted
masterpiece there is very little new to added. Woo certainly continues his exploration of Chow's knightly persona. The
narrative is bookended by sequences in a church, giving the whole saga the feeling of a crusade. Chow's white suit, which
becomes stained with blood, almost makes him a standard-bearer in a war of decency. The fact that our hero constantly
abandons his mission to help those caught between the crossfire bring Woo's pet theme of chivalry into sharp contrast with
the growing corporate professionalism of the villains. The film was such an international success it led to Chow, and to a
lesser extent Woo, being typecast in the years to come. (continued...)
qualities e.g. courage, integrity, and consideration, of an ideal knight. 3. archaic a. knights. b.
mounted men at arms. John Woo told the Bright Lights film journal why he picked Chow Yun-Fat as the third lead for
his comeback film: "When we did the casting for A Better Tomorrow, I had in my mind's eye what I wanted. I wanted a
modern knight. Someone with a real personality and human qualities. I read in the paper that he did a lot of work with
orphans. This is what I was looking for. A strong man with a good heart. The image he portrayed to me was one of Cary
Grant, Clint Eastwood, Alain Delon, or Humphrey Bogart. I can see all of these characteristics in him." Woo was born in
China but moved to Hong Kong at an early age due to illness. His life was reliant on the charity of others; the financial
sacrifices his parents made to keep him healthy, cash and clothes from American relations, education by a Lutheran
Church, and introduction to alternative European cinema by his college friends. Deciding that filmmaking was his vocation,
he wanted to relate his ingrained values of true heroics. For Woo, those who are just and charitable, considerate and
spirited, were the protagonists he wanted to portray in his cinema. His only stumbling block was the HK movie industry. The
high volume of martial arts and swordplay flicks the city churned out granted him twelve busy years in which to develop his
directorial skills, but the genre-specific requirements of the studios allowed him limited creative freedom. It was producer
Tsui Hark who allowed him stylistic liberty to remake True Colours of a Hero (1967) as a modern day triad epic. The casting
of the two brothers who would give the thriller its emotional depth were set in stone, but Woo was allowed to pick his third
lead for the role of the fun loving, unstoppable Mark Gor, and more importantly shift this character's personality to suit his
own thematic concerns. Woo had found his knight. In 1986 Chow Yun-Fat was allegedly considered box office poison. He
was a TV star who had failed to crossover to the big screen. During the 70s he had made a name for himself on the TV
show Shanghai Town (1976 onwards) as a romantic lead. Movies, however, proved to be much more difficult: his fame
could get them made, but his name couldn't get the punters to buy tickets. Before his first collaboration with John Woo on A
Better Tomorrow, his sole cinematic success had been The Story of Wu Viet (1981). His fortunes were about to change.
Throughout its production, A Better Tomorrow (1986) was considered little more than a comeback vehicle for ageing hero Ti
Lung, and a big screen calling card for pop star Leslie Cheung. Chow's role as Mark, Lung's ice-cool partner, whose act of
vengeance leaves him crippled, was a secondary concern to Hark. Yet from the opening moment, Woo gives this character
the most optically potent introduction; waiting alone in the middle of the street like some knight errant awaiting his next
crusade, his armour a long grey trench coat, his visor an impenetrable pair of shades. For the film that allegedly invented
the Heroic Bloodshed cycle, it is critical that the key actor of "gun-fu" is also the focus of the scene that crystallizes Woo's
stylistic concerns. Chow gracefully dances through a restaurant with a girl on his arm, the slow motion showing both his
patience and his cunning; he is hiding spare automatics in the flowerpots outside the room where the gang he is about to
dispatch in a piñata of red mayhem are dining en masse. After Chow looks his opponents in the eye, Woo cranks the
camera down to normal speed, and Chow opens fire with two guns. With those few frames action cinema was set on a
new course. Woo said he stole this image from Westerns, it being the only practical way he could allow his hero to outdraw
a dozen men. It is telling that Woo's first successful experiment with this composition of carnage was in collaboration with
his newfound leading man, Chow Yun Fat. Encouraged by the critical and commercial success of this partnership, Woo set
out to make what was destined to become the masterpiece of the genre, The Killer (1989), starring Chow as the
eponymous assassin. Tsui Hark had other plans, deciding to reunite the ensemble of A Better Tomorrow for a sequel,
despite the fact that Chow's character had died in a hail of bullets before the credits rolled. Characterised by a mish-mash
of subplots, new characters and extraneous sequences, A Better Tomorrow II (1987) was clearly the work of a creative
director with little concentration on the work in hand. Apart from during his now-trademarked sequences of orchestrated
pandemonium, the sequel sees Woo grudgingly marking time. The director only seems to come alive during Chow's
Lazarus-style resurrection. The narrative conceit that facilitates the star's return is the old "estranged twin brother" routine,
but the way in which Woo treats this cliché is the film's sole moment of directorial invention. We are reminded of Chow's
late incarnation by a series of comic book-esque paintings that recreate the indelible images of him from the original film.
We then see the familiar looking Ken who, unlike his doppelganger, is alive and well in New York City. Woo takes the visual
grammar of the comic book, a literary form which sees its protagonists coming back to life month after month, and uses it to
reintroduce his favourite star in a sequence which manages to be inventive, touching, mythologizing and direct. Chow, given
this new lease of life, proceeds to treat the rest of the film as a kind of long-winded joke, happily laughing through the
expositionary dialogue and playing up to the camera. His upstaging antics are matched only by Steve McQueen's
deliciously distracting hat-fiddling in The Magnificent Seven (1960) - perhaps appropriate given the heavy influence of
westerns on John Woo's filmmaking. Woo also steals a motif from Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967):
Chow's character episodically assumes items from his dead brother's wardrobe of shades, trenchcoat and guns as the
story progresses, in the same way that The Man With No Name pieces together his poncho, cheroot and mule during the
progress of his third adventure. In many ways The Killer, Woo and Chow's third collaboration, is such an accepted
masterpiece there is very little new to added. Woo certainly continues his exploration of Chow's knightly persona. The
narrative is bookended by sequences in a church, giving the whole saga the feeling of a crusade. Chow's white suit, which
becomes stained with blood, almost makes him a standard-bearer in a war of decency. The fact that our hero constantly
abandons his mission to help those caught between the crossfire bring Woo's pet theme of chivalry into sharp contrast with
the growing corporate professionalism of the villains. The film was such an international success it led to Chow, and to a
lesser extent Woo, being typecast in the years to come. (continued...)