MovieChat Forums > Chi bi: Jue zhan tian xia (2009) Discussion > Okay John Woo, you've successfully finis...

Okay John Woo, you've successfully finished the Chi Bi epics...


Now how about getting back to gritty urbanized action films like "Hard Boiled" and "The Killer"?

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I agree but only if he stays in Mainland China/Hong Kong. We want another Hard Boiled not Hard Target!

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YES!...Please don't go back to Hollywood.

Boom.

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yes, go back to cheesy action flicks and the doves and please never do anything related to 3 kingdoms ever again.
He practically vomitted on the epic with these films.

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Waaaah.....cry me a river....

"Ignorance does not equal innocence"

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I can't agree more. So the Hollywood castaway went home and totally ruined a great story. Please stop investing in his films anymore (but it seems that quite a lot of non-Chinese speakers love this film, as well as those craps of Chang Yi-Mou...)

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No one will ever be completely satisfied. Is it really possible to take one of the most significant works Man has ever conceived and make a film that stands as its equal? I highly doubt it. So, why can't we just enjoy the different interpretations of the work and praise the artists for their artistic vision? Everyone will see it differently, so let's just accept how things really are.

"Ignorance does not equal innocence"

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Hey I liked Hard Target! But yeah I agree, the films he made in China are FAR better than the ones he made in America (Paycheck, Mission Impossable 2, and Broken Arrow SUCKED). The Killer, A better Tomorrow (especially the 2nd one) and even his old school movies like Last Hurrah For Chivalry are all classics and have the BEST (thats right, I said THE BEST) action sequences ever filmed and they also have a lot of emotion to them too.

His Red Cliff films are definately different in style and story, but I enjoyed them. Yeah, Im well aware they arent historically correct but they are FILMS made for entertainment. John Woo cinematography is still very graceful and exciting and the actors do a superb job as well.

To each his own I guess some people like Red Cliff, some people dont. I think they were well made, but not John Woos best work, but still entertaining. I give both red cliff films about 7.5/10.




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I haven't seen Red Cliff yet, but, I was previously a fan of Woo. I agree with what has been said in this thread and have been saying the same exact thing since around 2002.

Face/Off is the only significant work he made in the USA. He needs to return to the guts of urban crime drama and continue to develop it... even though he has already undoubtedly created 2 or 3 of the best action masterpieces of all time in the aforementioned titles.

More white and red, more heroic bloodshed, more Hard Boiled, The Killer, and Bullet in the Head.

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Face/Off wasn't the only significant thing he did during his Hollywood years - 'Mission: Impossible II' was very 'big', as was 'Paycheck', unfortunately (perhaps this suggests something about the strength of A-list castings). Even 'Hard Target' received quite a big of attention for a few years in the early '90s, when Jean-Claude van Damme's inexplicable 15 minutes of fame had yet to mercifully expire. Even 'Windtalkers', though awful, seemed to me to do pretty well in the US - I think this was the effect of the post-Saving Private Ryan trend of Hollywood spitting out cheesy, over-the-top WWII films featuring stories of struggling and conflicted US soldiers as the most heroic and brave people to ever walk the Earth, in their crusade to single-handedly save civilization (or something similarly ridiculous).

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Oh, yeah, I'm well aware of his other Hollywood contributions... I was just saying that to me, Face/Off was the only one that really captured any of the talent that he used to make his pre-Hollywood movies.

I somewhat enjoyed all of them, but, I only consider them average, while Face/Off I've re-watched and enjoyed repeatedly and something of his older works seems preserved within.

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A lot of mainland Chinese don't like this film, but a lot of Chinese from Hong Kong and Singapore do. I'm a big fan of the novel and know all the deviations from both the novel and history. This is a movie for crying out loud; a director is allowed to make certain artistic licenses (just like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter). Just enjoy it for what it is; IMO it's the best John Woo movie (Part II only, not Part I) since Hard Boiled. And fyi I think the Zhang Yimou movies you mentioned are crap too.

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"Face/Off" is good.

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I'm from Singapore and I thought Chi bi 1 was better than 2. The battle scenes in Part 2 was maybe better, but Red Cliff 2 has so many plotholes that became very distracting. Some of them are mentioned by the poster here.

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A better tomorrow 4 !!!

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I agree.

Tribute to Bruce Lee's Master
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7SV3XMAdyk&fmt=18

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[deleted]

John Woo is going to be adapting a graphic novel called Calibur. It was news last year, i'm surprised no one mentioned this.



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