“He’s a hero to me”: the Hollywood icon who inspired John Woo to change Hong Kong cinema
In 1992, John Woo released Hard Boiled, the last film he made in his native Hong Kong before crossing the water to work in Hollywood. The film was a big hit in his homeland but an even bigger hit with Western critics and audiences, who hailed it as one of the greatest action films ever made. In 2023, Woo revealed that it’s perhaps not surprising that Hard Boiled, of all his films, connected the most with people outside of Hong Kong – because it was directly inspired by a Hollywood icon’s most enduring character.
Before he exploded onto the Hollywood scene in 1993 with the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target, Woo had made a mind-boggling 22 films in Hong Kong. He made his feature debut in 1974 with The Young Dragons, which starred Jackie Chan, but he wouldn’t experience a true breakout hit until 1986’s A Better Tomorrow. Over the next six years, he would rattle off A Better Tomorrow II, The Killer, and Bullet in the Head, with his reputation as an action genius building with each film.
In 2009, Woo revealed that it was actually with The Killer that he first noticed audiences outside of Hong Kong paying attention to his work. He explained, “Before that movie I’d never known how the people in the rest of the world saw me, how they felt about my films. So, when all of a sudden I started getting good reviews and all those people in the West said they loved it, it was so exciting.” With humbling emotion, he added, “I almost cried; I was moved so much.”
When Woo spoke to The New Yorker in 2023, he gave a theory as to why his films in this period suddenly began resonating with larger audiences. On top of making a concerted effort to ensure his movies were more personal to him, he also began using them as vessels for paying homage to the directors and films that inspired him. He explained, “I paid tribute to the filmmakers I admired, like how The Killer was obviously an homage to Le Samouraï. Bullet in the Head was also an homage to Martin Scorsese since I was greatly influenced by his film Mean Streets.”
By the time it came to make Hard Boiled, though, Woo had another totemic Hollywood figure in mind. At that time, Hong Kong was suffering from an increase in its level of criminality that Woo described as “nearly out of control”. So, Woo began crafting a film about a renegade cop who would do whatever it took to push back against criminals. Inspector ‘Tequila’ Yuen Ho-yan would play by his own rules and disregard the orders of his superiors, but he would get results. Sometimes, he’d even be happy to go outside the law to stop the bad guys.
Yes, you guessed it. Woo confessed, “I made an homage to Clint Eastwood, my idol, in Dirty Harry. Harry Callahan, Eastwood’s character, is very decisive. He knows right from wrong and he believes in his instincts, just like me when I direct. ‘Instinct’ is the keyword for my directing style. He’s a hero to me.”
Indeed, knowing how much Woo idolises Eastwood and “Dirty” Harry, it makes perfect sense what the Los Angeles Times described when it went to his office to interview the man who changed Hong Kong cinema in 2023.
“Step into Woo’s glass-paned private office,” the outlet wrote, “and you get a deeper window into the influences that still inspire him. Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry glowers across Woo’s desk from a framed studio glossy.” That’s right – Harry Callahan watches over Woo like some kind of grimacing, potentially fascistic guardian angel. It must make him feel lucky. Punk.
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