Big Hit hits big. US box office surprise.

This Sony's small budget ($13 million) testosterone actioner. It became the first actioner targeted for young men which reached the top on box office. The sussee of Big Hit was a surpise for all of us, some of us maybe did expct some kind of succee but Big Hit made 11 million on one weekend. Now you can say Big Hit will make a good profit. Kirk Wong got a good start in US.
Read the Box Office results from Reuters

TOP TEN MOVIES: April 24 - April 26
(1)"The Big Hit", TriStar/Sony, $10.8 million, $10.8 million, 1 week.
(2)"City of Angels", Warner Bros., $9.0 million, $46.6 million, 3 weeks.
(3)"The Object of My Affection", 20th Fox, $5.2 million, $17.1 m, 2 weeks.
(4)"Titanic", Paramount, $4.9 million, $560.6 million, 19 weeks.
(5)"Paulie", Dreamworks, $4.4 million, $10.8 million, 2 weeks.
(6)"Lost In Space", New Line, $4.0 million, $58.1 million, 4 weeks.
(7)"The Odd Couple II", UA/MGM, $2.5 million, $14.1 million, 3 weeks.
(8)"Mercury Rising", Universal, $2.2 million, $27.9 million, 4 weeks.
(9)"The Players Club", Universal, $2.0 million, $17.4 million, 3 weeks.
(10)"Scream 2", Dimension/Miramax, $1.8 million, $98.1 million, 20 weeks.

Top ten movies History

Hard Target DVD announced!.

The Killer (Criterion DVD) was released in April 1st 1998. Hard Target DVD coming in June 30th 1998 (according to 100% DVD And We also might, maybe they could release Face/Off on DVD next summer. I hope they would, I really do. How about Broken Arrow? Once a Thief (1996 TV-pilot) was also released on DVD. And Tai Seng will import many Hong Kong DVDs starting A Better Tomorrow 1-3 films in May. it is looking good if you are looking for John Woo films on DVD. More info about 

HARD TARGET (LTX/DD) - DVD

Retail Price $ 24.98
Release Date 6/30/98
Category ACTION_ADVENTURE
Studio UNI

John Woo's NIKE TV commercial now available for viewing

John Woo's Nike TV commercial is now available for your viewing pleasure at Daniel's Action Web. Commercial is in real audio file, you need a real player. And when you go there you could check out Chow Yun Fat's handphone commercial and shampoo advertisement as well.

You can find insctructions how to watch these files on Action Web. However for some reason I was not able to watch these files before I saved them and then watched them locally, offline. you see, the picture ofor commercial hides a link to Real Audio file, use command [save location] or something like that. It depends on what browser and OS you have.

John Woo Trailers and film clips

Film Clips! [from Zine On Fire]
Killer Film Clip, Quicktime
Hard Boiled Film Clip, Quicktime
Full Contact Film Clip, Quicktime

The Big Hit Theatrical Trailer [from Hollywood.com]
Quicktime (7MB) . . . AVI video (7MB) . . . MPEG 2 (130MB!)

The Replacement Killers Theatrical Trailer [from Hollywood.com]
Quicktime (8MB) . . . AVI video (6MB)

The Replacement Killers in Finland. Cinema release.

The Replacement Killers will hit the big screens in Finland April 24th.

What more can I say? Still haven't seen many reviews or commercials here. Katso (Finnish TV- and movie- magazine) gives 4 points out of 10 and call it bubble gum for eyes. Don't use brains when you watch this one.

John Woo Books

Book nr. 1

Matteo Petrucci and co. are writing a book on John Woo for italian issue Sentieri Selvaggi. The book will be in Italian, but it will come with exlucive photo collection. It is part of a series of monographies about the most important world's directors. I just got mail that the book now finished. It is only a matter of time when it will be released. They mailed me it should happen in April.

You can place your order using this E-mail: sentieri.selvaggi@flashnet.it

Book nr. 2

More info about John Woo book written by Marco Bertolino, and Ettone Ridola. It is written in Italian, and will be out in June 1998.

Here's what he has to say of the book: The book will be divided in 4 parts:

1. biography,
2. a large analysis of Woo's long career (the largest chapter),
3. synopsis film-by-film
4. a collection of things said by Woo during interviews (about friendship, cinema, music...).

Possible Woo project: Evita 2

Message from <'Hard Boiled'
A.P. Wire Service:
Director John Woo announced plans to make a sequel to the popular musical "Evita!" to star Madonna, Jet Li and Paul Reubens. Madonna will play Evita's twin sister who returns from a convent to save her country. Jet Li, a popular Hong Kong actor, is working with a voice coach and dance instructor for his role as a singing waiter who befriends Madonna. Filming starts this fall for a projected summer 1999 release.

John Woo: Ballet with Bullets [article in German]

The article on John Woo, originally printed in Germany magazine Stern nr. 40, 25.9.1997. Written by Hannes Ross.

Ballet with Bullets (Ballet mit Kugeln) (in German only!)

Cage: ‘Jetzt wird es keiner mehr wagen, Woos Action-Poesie kaputtzumachen.’

Face/Off video [in Finland]

US. Rental video release of Face/Off has been out for a long time. But Soon it will be released in Finland (and many other Eurean countries) as well.

Release dates in Finland:
Rental: April 15th.
Sell-thru: April 24th

Distributor in Finland: Finnkino / Buena Vista Home Entertainment

The Killer Movie Scene in Quicktime movie

New! The Killer movie scene [from Hong Kong Heroes]
The nightclub shootout - The Killer (3.4MB - 1.09 minutes - 240W x 180H - 6 fps)

John Woo Interview from Screen Machine Magazine

Screen Machine Magazine: A mag on Asian cinema & cultures, the new issue (fourth) is coming out in a week. It will be a special interview issue and featured there will interviews with Kirk Wong, Cha Chuen-Yee (dir. of Once upon a Time in Triad Society 1/2), Christopher Doyle (Wong Kar-Wai dir. of photo.), Takeshi Kaneshiro, Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Hui and much (much) more... Ask for more info from reptila@total.net

Read the Interview English translation from French.

3rd Fant-Asian Film Festival in Montreal.

More info

The third FANT-ASIA film festival in Montreal, (July 10 to August 9, 1998) . It is dedicated to fantasy cinema with a big emphasis given to Asian films, especially Hong Kong films. This year Joh Woo might be one of the guests to present the longest version in existence of THE KILLER.

Hong Kong Face-Off
VHS NTSC 83 minutes
Eastern Heroes / Arena Release
English Dubbed / Full Screen

This is one of those retitled films just what Arena Video keeps on doing. Now I've seen this video and it must be John Woo's directorial debut The Young Dragons aka. Farewell Buddy. Originally it was banned in Hong Kong because of too violence. After that Golden Harvest bought this indepentally produced film and it was re-cut, edited and rescored before it was released. Now it is a typical Hong Kong martial arts film, or could I say it reminds me many modern Hollywood action films. There is no decent plot (if there is any plot) but it is a collection of fighting scenes. Nothing much more but when a fighting is over actors just run into the next one. Story tells about young but very good martial arts fighter. He gets a mission when a gang terrorises a whole town and its citizens. Finally he finds out that the leader of the gang responsible for his fathers death. So he fights and kill many, so many members of this gang. This gives us enough fighting while we are waiting for the final fight where our hero could get his revenge.

Although it is dubbed and fullscreen version, this is the only release what I know to be available.

April 4th. Update! Subtitled version of The Young Dragons can be found from Video Search of Miami. They also have many other rare Woo films. Look from their online catalog or get the printed version.

Announced John Woo DVDs

Hong Kong DVDs

The following titles have also been announced for release by Media Asia. All will likely have removable subtitles and be letterboxed. They've also been announced as having new Dolby Digital 5.1 (?) sound remixes and remastered pictures, plus extra features. A Better Tomorrow 1-3 are supposed to street in late March in Hong Kong. Tai Seng will be importing them in May. Other should come later.

It is great that these titles will be remastered for a better picture and sound. I'm not sure if they really make new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, or they have digital mono sond. But at least music will be recorded in stereo.

A Better Tomorrow 1-3 (now released in Hong Kong), The Killer, Once A Thief, Bullet In The Head.

Tai Seng DVDs [update 4.4.]

Tai Seng will release them in US. Release date for A Better Tomorrow 1-3 (and Chinese Ghost Story 1-3) DVDs is May 26. All movies will be presented in widescreen with Dolby Digital (but it can be digital mono) soundtracks in Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean subtitles. Most probably Tai Seng releases will similar to Hong Kong DVDs

Criterion DVDs [update 4.4.]

The Killer DVD from Voyager co should be now available. Features audio commentary director John Woo and producer Terence Chang and deleted scenes. Hard Boiled Special Edition should be released in May 1998.

More info about John Woo DVDs

Red on White - What is New! April '98