Hailed by action star Jean-Claude Van Damme as "the Martin Scorsese of Asia," Woo was a legendary action director in the burgeoning Hong Kong film industry before emigrating to Hollywood to direct Van Damme in "Hard Target" (1993). Reportedly the first Asian to direct a major Hollywood studio film, Woo made his name with action-packed, emotionally florid movies with titles like "The Killer" (1989), "A Bullet in the Head" (1990), and "Hard-Boiled" (1992). Enthusiastically embraced by "hip" Brit and American critics while dismissed as a chop-socky poseur by skeptics, this bold visual stylist stages kinetic scenes of over-the-top gunplay with fluid camera movements, extremely long takes, and meticulous choreography of movement. The work of celebrated Western helmers Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah inspire his action scenes. Classic American gangster films--as well as their French and Japanese variations--have informed his selection of iconography. Woo was forced to tone down the carnage, reduce the body count and greatly slow down the pace of his action to appease uninitiated audiences for his American debut.

In a 1993 interview with journalist Bob Strauss in PULSE!, Woo explained: "I choreograph action like you'd design a dancing sequence in a musical. . . I have a sense of the beauty and the rhythm of the action, the atmosphere and the action's emotional arc. Everything is clear in my mind before I shoot. But like a musical, the rhythm and movement have to be filmed precisely as you thought it out."

Unapologetically sentimental and melodramatic, Woo does not tailor his work for the intelligentsia. After more than a decade of churning out kung fu movies and wacky comedies, he struck pay dirt with "A Better Tomorrow" (1986). Reputedly the highest grossing film in Hong Kong history, the film generated two popular sequels. (Woo directed the first two of the series.) "A Better Tomorrow" is credited with creating the modern HK gangster film. Woo's preference for romantic heroes--even when they are ostensibly criminals--rather than the "realistic" variety favored by Hollywood has affected the trajectory of the genre in Hong Kong.

Though blood-soaked, his films are marked by their old-fashioned morality and chastely gallant attitudes toward women. The demands of friendship and loyalty are his major recurring themes. There is no explicit sexuality in his work, though critics have noted a marked homoerotic tension between his heroes and villains. Unlike Hollywood features, Woo's good guys are just as ruthless as the bad.

In Hong Kong, Woo's leading man of choice was matinee idol Chow Yun-fat. Woo and Chow collaborated on five HK films, prompting British critics to liken their collaboration to that of John Ford and John Wayne, while the director compares them to Scorsese and De Niro. "Hard-Boiled", their last film before Woo left for Hollywood, opened in NYC in a restored director's cut in the highly competitive summer of 1993. Also scheduled to open in July of that year was "Hard Target", but after a preview audience (stocked with Van Damme fans) hooted at the over-the-top action and balked at Woo's use of hypnotic slow-motion, elegant dissolves and fades, the release was delayed. A standard action editor was brought in to "punch up" (and dumb down) the footage. Though quite tame by HK standards, the film turned out to be a solid commercial success, despite the extensive re-editing.

Two years passed before Woo found a suitable script to make his American directing debut. During that interlude, the Hollywood newcomer endured countless meetings and watched several projects fade away, including an opportunity to collaborate with Scorsese. Despite his stated preference for a smaller project, he was convinced to take on directing chores for the $54 million "Broken Arrow" (1996), a pulse-pounding, non-stop actioner starring Christian Slater and John Travolta as rival pilots battling over two nuclear warheads. In addition to working with genuine American stars, the film allowed Woo to try his hand at a special effects-driven thriller. Though lacking the poetry of his HK work, "Broken Arrow" offered awesome action set pieces and racked up impressive box-office receipts.

Woo's career continued at the breakneck speed of his signature action sequences. He directed the 1997 hit "Face/Off" and signed a lucrative film deal with Tri-Star in 1998. He directed Tom Cruise in the blockbuster "Mission Impossible 2" (2001) and reteamed once again with Nicolas Cage in the WWII drama "Windtalkers (2002). After several years of seeing his trademark visusals cribbed by countless other directors while failing to perpetuate his own creative or commerical success, Woo added his signature action touch to the Phillip K. Dick-inspired sci fi thriller "Paycheck" (2003) starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman, a moderately entertaining yarn about a man whose short term memory is erased that performed decently at the box office.