- Dean Napolitano/Wall Street Journal
- John Woo at the Venice Film Festival.
The Venice Film Festival honored veteran director John Woo at a star-filled celebration on Friday night, awarding him with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.
Woo accepted the award from American director Quentin Tarantino, president of the jury for the main competition at this year’s festival, and Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. He dedicated the award to his mother, wife and family.
Woo is the director of such 1980s Hong Kong films as “A Better Tomorrow” and “The Killer,” both starring Chow Yun-fat and highly imitated in Hollywood for their stylized action sequences. Moving to Hollywood in the mid-90s, Woo directed John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in“Face/Off” and “Mission: Impossible II” starring Tom Cruise.
Woo told Speakeasy that he was completely surprised when he first learned that he would receive the award. “It was really unexpected.” Venice festival director Marco Müller at a press conference this week heaped praise onto Woo and his influential style of Hong Kong and Hollywood action movies.
“I don’t feel like I was bestowing an honor,” he said. “It was waiting for him.” At a private reception in Venice just before Friday’s award ceremony, a Who’s Who of the Hong Kong film industry gathered to toast Woo, including actresses Michelle Yeoh (“Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), Maggie Cheung (“In the Mood for Love” and “Irma Vep”); directors Tsui Hark, Andrew Lau and Stanley Kwan; and producers Terence Chang and Nansun Shi. Immediately following the ceremony, Woo’s new film had its world premiere. “Reign of Assassins,” a Chinese-language film screening out-of-competition that he co-directed with Su Chao-pin, is a martial-arts mystery (with shades of “Face/Off”) starring Yeoh as a Ming Dynasty assassin. It begins opening in Asia later this month. The Weinstein Co. has bought the North American distribution rights, although a U.S. release date is unclear.
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