Any number of previous directors had used slow motion to add some tension to their action scenes, but Woo made an outright art form out of it, pulling entire dramatic arcs out of simple body movements and precisely choreographed mayhem. In a normal action movie, the shootouts and chases are used to punctuate points in the story and distract us from the business of the plot, but in a Woo movie the action scenes are the story. A sidelong glance between two combatants in the heat of battle can contain as much narrative information as a song and dance number in an MGM musical. These scenes don't just keep us occupied; they're modulated to propel the story in important ways. Characters seem to have an unlimited supply of ammunition when firing at one another, until they are forced to reload only at times of dramatic necessity. It's an audacious conceit that pushes a viewer's suspension of disbelief, but it works because Woo makes it work. You want to believe that a pistol can fire off hundreds of rounds uninterrupted, only to run out of ammo at that one crucial moment when the hero is most desperately cornered. Logic and plausibility are meaningless concepts in a universe driven by the kind of passion John Woo delivers.

The Killer from 1989 is Woo's masterpiece, an operatic tribute to the brotherhood of violent but honorable men. Woo's frequent leading man Chow Yun-Fat stars as Jeff, an assassin for hire with his own rigidly upheld code of ethics. He won't kill innocents and even puts his own life in danger to protect a child caught in the middle of a gun battle he instigated. When a beautiful young singer is blinded during the chaos of one of his hits, Jeff rescues her and later introduces himself into her life as a protector and savior. This puts him at odds with his employers, who consider such sentiment a liability to their cause. Jeff falls for the girl, but can't tell her the truth about his identity. When his bosses finally turn on him and send whole squads of goons to take out Jeff and anyone in his vicinity, he forms a reluctant partnership with the dogged cop (Danny Lee) who had also been pursuing him, but who recognizes in Jeff the similarities of their characters despite operating on opposite sides of the law.

The film is a virtual checklist of all Woo's favorite images and themes: the romanticizing of action and violence as metaphors for the personalities of his characters, heavy-handed religious iconography, white doves fluttering in slow motion, Chinese standoffs with multiple characters pointing guns at each others' heads, acrobatic stunts, and thousands upon thousands of bullets fired. The action scenes are amazingly well staged and choreographed, as beautiful as they are bloody. The shot of Chow standing in a speedboat with sniper rifle in his hands has become an iconic image of Hong Kong cinema, and the movie's deeply ironic ending provides plenty of pathos in addition to the excitement of all the bloodshed going on around it.

Bullet in the Head is Woo's 1990 war opus about three troubled kids from 1960's Hong Kong who, after killing a rival punk, flee to Vietnam hoping to find profit in the chaos there. In trying to make a quick buck, they get caught up in the political situation and are eventually captured by the Viet Cong, where they endure both physical and psychological tortures that dramatically alter the course of their lives. Unlike most of Woo's other action movies, Bullet in the Head features some extremely disturbing and graphic violence with few romantic aspects. The film is an acknowledgement of the craziness of war, and a harrowing journey through the psyches of its damaged characters. Woo stages many virtuoso action scenes, but deliberately without the poetry or balletic grace we've associated with his style.

Woo had abandoned the A Better Tomorrow franchise after its second installment due to a falling out with producer Tsui Hark. Bullet in the Head shares the setting and overriding themes of A Better Tomorrow III (released the previous year), as if specifically designed to be the movie that Tsui's disappointing sequel failed to be. The picture is not perfect; it has some jumpy story transitions and goes a little over the top in its last act, but it's a compelling war movie and shows some unexpected maturity from the director.

Almost inexplicably, both The Killer and Bullet in the Head were box office failures in Hong Kong and only found widespread popularity and acclaim after international distribution. In response, Woo's next picture was the frothy and light-hearted crime caper Once a Thief, which was enough of a box office success to ensure production of his Hong Kong swan song, the magnificently over the top Hard Boiled. Since 1993, Woo was worked exclusively in Hollywood, and nothing has been the same. Even if he never makes another great movie, his back catalog of Hong Kong action pictures will survive, and through DVDs like this John Woo Collection we can continue to cherish his once glorious legacy...