The record-breaking movie John Woo made for free
John Woo is responsible for several of cinema's greatest-ever action movies, but it was in another genre where he put his hand into his own pocket.
(Credits: Far Out / MUBI)
Film Âť Cutting Room Floor
Wed 15 January 2025 5:30, UK
Even the greatest directors are susceptible to being chewed up and spat out by the Hollywood machine, as John Woo gradually discovered when he realised that being placed under the constraints of the American studio system was hardly conducive to producing his best work.
The filmmaker who played an instrumental role in reinventing the action genre through a string of seminal Hong Kong movies throughout the 1980s and early 1990s always felt like an auteur whoâd be unable to resist the lure of bigger budgets and bigger stars that Stateside cinema provided, and his kinetic, turbocharged style of balletic violence and visually dazzling gunplay seemed tailor-made for the blockbuster business.
Unfortunately, that didnât turn out to be the case. Wooâs legacy was already assured before heâd even directed his first film outside of his native country after A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Bullet to the Head, and Hard Boiled established him as high-octaneâs premium source of expertly choreographed chaos, influencing the medium for decades to come, with his fingerprints as prevalent now as they were back then.
Woo made six features in Hollywood, yet only one could hold a candle to his Hong Kong heyday. Face/Off was the pinnacle of his decade-long sojourn, and while Hard Target, Broken Arrow, and Mission: Impossible II were solid if unspectacular, Windtalkers and Paycheck brought his American adventure to a disappointing conclusion.
A couple of consecutive flops meant the worthwhile offers dried up, sending Woo back to home soil to rehabilitate his reputation. It came with a certain amount of risk, though, with his first Hong Kong film in over a decade and a half carrying an $80 million price tag, making it the most expensive local production in history when cameras began rolling on Red Cliff in April 2007.
The shoot rumbled on for over a year, tragedy struck when a stunt performer was killed in an accident that left half a dozen crew members injured, and the final running time for the two-part spectacular was a whopping 268 minutes. Every penny was up there on the screen, and as it turned out, part of that was because none of them ended up in Wooâs pocket. In fact, he stumped up some of his own cash to ensure Red Cliff was finished to his â and the studioâs â satisfaction.
âI didnât take any money,â he confirmed to Movieline before explaining why. âWell, you know, the movie was over budget, so I paid for it. All I wanted was for everyone to finish the movie.â Presumably, the filmmaker would have been entitled to earnings on the backend depending on its box office performance after dedicating years of his life to Red Cliff without a salary, which ended up working out very well.
It wasnât just a significant hit at the global box office after earning a quarter of a billion dollars, but it set another record by dethroning James Cameronâs Titanic as Chinaâs highest-grossing release ever. Needless to say, Woo wouldnât have been short of a bob or two after that.
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