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Having never visited Poland, I was particularly happy to receive an invitation to the Five Flavours Film Festival, the only Asian film festival in Eastern Europe, which held its 9th edition last month. Featuring films from around East and Southeast Asia in its main competition and programs dedicated to John WOO’s Heroic Bloodshed period, Taiwanese Wuxia films and contemporary works of women directors from Japan, the hospitable and friendly event boasted an eclectic and fascinating mix of new and old cinema.

 

As well as enjoying the excellent films on show, with included ANDO Momoko’s People’s Jury Award winner 0.5 mm from Japan, July JUNG’s Cannes-invited A Girl at My Door with BAE Doo-na and LUK Yee-sum’s energetic HK debut Lazy Hazy Crazy, I also had the chance to participate in a special conference on the cinema of John WOO. Asian film expert Marcin Krasnowolski, who extended me the invitation, kicked off the discussion with a look at how WOO’s films were influenced by and have influenced other films, which I followed with a discussion on how his Heroic Bloodshed have specifically left an impact on Korean cinema.

 

I’ll confess that at first I thought this would be a relatively straightforward talk about one of Asia’s top cinematic stylist’s technical influence on the visual flair of a country which for many has taken on the mantle of the region’s top action cinema purveyor from Hong Kong. However, the more films of his I rewatched and the deeper I delved into the question of how his influence has been felt in Korea, the more I realized how complex it was and different from my original assumption.

 

As a western film enthusiast, the immediate image of WOO’s Heroic Bloodshed is a suave killer with a heart of gold, folded in a floor-length raincoat, donning aviator shades at night, and bursting through the air, guns akimbo, bullets flying, with a few doves fluttering overhead for good measure. But for Asian filmmakers, I came to realize, the more resounding image might be one of an honorable criminal (or roguish cop) embracing a fallen brother-in-arms, whilst silent tears stream down his face.

 

Ahead of the talk, watching the opening film of Five Flavours with a packed audience, which was a recently restored 4K print of WOO’s A Better Tomorrow (1986), proved a fascinating demonstration of the stark difference between eastern and western perspectives of his films. Viewers enjoyed the film, but more often than not, these modern, jaded film fans would laugh at the film’s brushes with overblown melodramatics and its sometimes brazen lapses in logic. Eastern spectators however, though they may watch the 29-year old title with some element of irony now, are more likely to connect with the film on an emotional level.

 

 

A Better Tomorrow is the first of WOO’s films belonging to the Heroic Bloodshed cannon, a group that comprises eight titles during his Hong Kong period, ending with 1992’s Hard Boiled. Coined in the late 1980s by Rick Baker in the magazine Eastern Heroes, Heroic Bloodshed refers to Hong Kong actions films with hyperkinetic, stylised gunplay and strong themes of brotherhood, sacrifice and redemption which are populated by triads, hitmen and cops.

 

In their heyday in the late 1980s and early 90s, WOO’s Heroic Bloodshed films proved very popular in Korea, particularly A Better Tomorrow II, which received over 260,000 viewers in Seoul in 1987, and Once a Thief, which recorded over 280,000 admissions in the capital in 1991. These melodramatic tales of brotherly bonding featured popular stars such as CHOW Yun-fat and Leslie Cheung (still a big name in Korea as evidenced by the mass of press released around the ten-year anniversary of his death in 2013). With their heady cocktails of quick cut editing, slow motion, strobe and bullet-strewn, constantly shattering sets, set against compelling melodramatic tales of male bonding and redemption, WOO’s action titles were quickly embraced by Korean viewers and soon reflected on local screens.

 

Concerning WOO’s direct influence on Korean filmmakers, a case could certainly be made for filmmakers like PARK Chan-wook and RYOO Seung-wan, though others, like LEE Myung-se, who have been likened to the HK cineaste, refute any direct inspiration. As a filmmaker who has taken on stylistic tropes and cues from so many corners of world cinema, it’s hard to catch a direct reference to WOO in PARK’s work, yet the bloody bodied-location of his most famous sequence, Old Boy’s (2003) corridor scene, bears a passing resemblance to the crimson climax of A Better Tomorrow II. However, if a connection is there, it’s not a major element of PARK’s signature style. RYOO has mentioned his appreciation of WOO’s work in the past and his films, particularly Arahan (2004) and The City Of Violence (2006) clearly show off his fondness of Hong Kong cinema. Again, the image of JUNG Doo-hong in The City Of Violence surrounding by opponents more readily calls to mind Bruce LEE.

 

Small influences may be found in the works of these visual stylists (and others) but the clearest place to identify WOO’s legacy is in Korea’s mid-level commercial industry. Rather than the auteurs, it’s populist industry filmmakers who exhibit the loudest indebtedness to his oeuvre. KANG Woo-suk replicated the CHOW/CHENG camaraderie in his Two Cops (1993-98) trilogy, initially with AHN Sung-ki and PARK Joong-hoon. Brotherhood was the lynchpin of the top Korean thrillers of the 90s, in gangster tales such as Beat (1997) and City of The Rising Sun (1999), and then KANG Je-kyu appropriated the full spectrum of WOO’s mise-en-scene for Swiri (1999), which ushered the industry into its modern, blockbuster era.

 

 

WOO’s most direct impact came in 2010 when SONG Hae-sung, with WOO as a producer, remade A Better Tomorrow. Slicker, half an hour longer and far more melodramatic, the film was roundly rejected in western territories precisely because it veered too strongly into histrionics. John H. LEE (71-Into The Fire, 2010) was also planning an English-language remake of The Killer (1989) with JUNG Woo-sung, but the project (also produced by WOO) has shifted gears away from Korean talent. However, CHOW Yun-Fat’s legendary hitman has found other ways into Korean films, most recently reincarnated as HA Jung-woo’s double gun-wielding “Hawaii Pistol” in summer hit Assassination.

 

Beyond the themes of brotherhood, WOO’s influence is also felt across similar films in the mid-brow commercial realm with his brand of slapstick action-comedy, lifted straight from Once a Thief, the most successful HK-era WOO film in Korea. This year’s crop of commercial fare included the Chuseok family action-comedy hit THE ACCIDENTAL DETECTIVE, which gave us not one but two CHOW Yun-Fat doppelganger strutting along the streets of Seoul.