Another bullet in the head?

Master of the Hong Kong action movie and protracted shoot out scene, director John Woo releases his first Chinese film this month, after a stint in Hollywood. But a stuntman dying on his set was just the latest in a series of setbacks

After repeated requests for an interview with John Woo, this reviewer was eventually told that the Guangzhou-born director was simply too upset to talk to the press. As anyone who’s been following the saga of Woo’s latest film will attest – Red Cliff has been nothing but trouble.

The film, based on an adaptation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story, is Woo’s first in Mandarin, having been based out of Hong Kong for most of his early career. It also marks a return to China after 15 years in Hollywood directing such hits as Face Off and Mission Impossible 2.

However, from the word go, Red Cliff has had problems. The first glitch came when actor Tony Leung, a collaborator on two of Woo’s early cult classics Bullet in the Head and Hard Boiled, declared himself too exhausted from filming Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution to appear in the film. Woo soldiered on knowing that he still had his old friend Chow Yun Fat on board, whom he had made an icon back in the ’80s. However when Chow also quit, citing "contract issues," fans were left wondering if the project could handle any more setbacks.

Unfortunately there was worse to come.

Torrential rains washed away part of the outdoor set while the crew was filming in Hebei Province, and Woo suffered another blow when local authorities banned him from shooting scenes on the Yangtze River. Then last month, while the director was preparing to promote the first half of the two-part, (four-hour-long) film, the unthinkable happened. He was told that a 23-year-old stuntman had been killed on set when a flaming boat had got out of control and engulfed a larger vessel, injuring six other people.

As a result, there’s since been talk of a curse on the film, but those close to him just feel bad for a director who’s poured his heart and soul into the project.

"I know that he really cares about this film, personally and as a filmmaker. It’s been a dream of his to adapt this novel into a film for a really long time," says director Alexi Tan, whose debut film Blood Brothers was produced by Woo. "But it’s a miracle the film got finished at all," he adds. "There have been no exaggerations in the press – every single thing that could have gone wrong went wrong. However for something like this to happen so close to the end is just so sad."

What’s more, Tan suggests the pressure on Woo to produce a comeback movie brilliant enough to prove China’s credentials as a filmmaking power may also be taking its toll.

"Fairly or unfairly, people have marked this film as a big hope for China, for the world to see that we can produce this level of film," says Tan; "and I’m sure that weighs heavy on his shoulders as well."

Concern is now growing that the circumstances surrounding Red Cliff are worryingly similar to those of Woo’s 1990 film Bullet in the Head. At the time the director claimed Bullet was his most personal project to date, but shooting didn’t run smoothly and the film did terribly at the box office – something Woo later admitted made him re-evaluate his whole career.

Though Red Cliff stars young actors Zhang Zhen and Takeshi Kaneshiro (as well as Tony Leung, who later returned to the production out of sympathy for Woo) and boasts the biggest budget in Asian cinema history (a rumoured 80 million USD), it remains to be seen whether audiences will be able to stomach the violent take on China’s ancient history Woo will no doubt serve up. Still, for the director’s fans, this is the most exciting film of the year, and initial reactions have been full of praise for action sequences on a mind blowing scale. Let’s just hope his bad luck doesn’t translate to the box office, or devotees could be deprived for even longer next time.

Sarah Keenlyside