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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

A lot of people are big fans of the Christopher McQuarrie movies in the Mission: Impossible series. A lot of more sophisticated movie goers prefer the more serious first picture directed by Brian De Palma. Some are the fans of the Brad Bird and J. J. Abrams installments. But almost everybody unanimously loves to hate on the John Woo second film Mission: Impossible 2. I frankly, don't get it.

John Woo is like the Chinese Michael Bay. During his time in Hong Kong cinema in the 80s, he directed one action classic after another. Woo is not the kind of guy who is known for Kung Fu movies. He made some of those earlier in his career, but he ended up being known for his Gun Fu movies. He is a master at shooting how people shoot each other. His films like 喋血双雄 ( The Killer ), 喋血街头 ( Bullet in the Head ) and 辣手神探 ( Hard Boiled ) are true Hong Kong action cinema masterpieces. They are tense. They are intense. They are dramatic. They are masterfully melodramatic. They are operatic. And they are stupidly beautiful in all of the Bayhem! sense of the word.

And yet staying in Hong Kong was not an option for Mr. Woo, because his film Bullet in the Head critically depicts the massacre at the Tiananmen Square. This is some pair of balls. And more than that. He made 2 more movies in Hong Kong before escaping to the USA in the 90s. He eventually did return to work on Chinese cinema later in his career as political tensions got a bit more under control. But for a while he was making movies in Hollywood. And he is kind of still making movies in Hollywood.

His first Hollywood picture was Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lance Henriksen. It is a cool little picture. Yet people didn't understand what the hell is this movie. John Woo brought his Hong Kong cinema techniques to Hollywood and people who are used to regular Hollywood didn't know what to think of it. Woo would try tweaking how much Hong-Kong influence he is going to use in his American pictures. His Broken Arrow with John Travolta and Christian Slater looks more like a normal film. Then his Nicolas Cage pairing with Travolta Face/Off was more like John Woo. And suddenly there was more praise. So he decided to double down on what he did on this film and made his next movie Mission: Impossible 2 his most John-Woo-like Hollywood movie.

It is funny that Quentin Tarantino apparently somewhat dislikes Michael Bay. Because apart from from Tony Scott Bay has a lot of this Hong Kong cinema influence in him. You could see techniques ( and sometime outright whole action ideas ) taken from Chinese films from late 80s and early 90s. The Yellow Hammer going through shacks in the end of Bad Boys II is a straight up remake of a similar sequence from a Jackie Chan's 1985 film 警察故事 ( Police Story ) which Chan also directed. And then multiple times in various films by Michael Bay you could see multitudes of techniques from directors like John Woo too.

Michael Bay likes to make the frame as busy with stuff as he can. This is a John Woo technique. He will cut to the same stunt multiple times from different angles. Kind of replaying the stunt over and over again, to give you a stronger impact of it. This is a Jackie Chan technique. He would use pigeons in some shots to add movement. He did that on 6 Underground for example. This is a John Woo technique. Like one of the most known things about John Woo is his pigeons.

John Woo's pigeons ( especially white ones ) is like Tarantino's feet. It is such a John Woo thing that John Woo ends up kind of satirizing it himself. For example in his 2017 film 追捕 ( Manhunt ) he make a whole action scene around a humongous cage full of hundreds of pigeons. Like, he knows that he messing with the audience at this point.

Anyway, what I was trying to say... Tarantino is a big fan of Hong Kong cinema. And he is using a lot of cool Hong Kong action techniques ( like crash zooms and stuff ) in his movies. And it is known that Tarantino is a fan of John Woo. So why the hell Tarantino seems like he doesn't like Michael Bay?

Back to pigeons. So in Mission: Impossible 2 John Woo makes you wait for the pigeons. But then he delivers some of the best pigeon comedy in his career. Like for example this shot.




Also Tom Cruise is perfect for a John Woo picture. First of all a lot of the times on Hong Kong action films, the stars would do their own stunts. Jackie Chan is a good example of it. So John Woo ( a master of action ) and Tom Cruise ( a crazy motherfucker, who isn't afraid to die, for a movie ) are the perfect couple, so to speak. Also the way Woo makes Cruise rotate and flip and stuff, in the most majestic of ways. Flying through sparkles with two guns in his hands. Or running to kick somebody in the face through a crowd of pigeons. Perfection!

Speaking of Tom Cruise, his cousin William Mapother is in this film too. He is one of the bad guys. You know that Tom Cruise is not his full name. His full name is actually Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. Which is such a mouthful that I'm glad he uses the shorter, much snappier version.

Also interesting that Brendan Gleeson and Rade Šerbedžija are in this film. In 1999 ( one year before MI2 ) Tom did Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick and Mongolia by Paul Thomas Anderson. Both were rather psycho-sexual roles. And then after MI2 he did Vanilla Sky where Steven Spielberg plays a small cameo role. And then after that he makes Minority Report with Spielberg himself. The same Spielberg, who's 2 daughters Sasha and Destry will end up in 2021 Paul Thomas Anderson film Licorice Pizza which is also rather psycho-sexual. And it is the same Steven Spielberg who was tasked with finishing the editing of Eyes Wide Shut after Kubrick's death. And also was tasked by Kubrick's wife, to immediately finish another project by Kubrick, the 2001 film that ended up being directed by Spielberg AI: Artificial Intelligence. The AI movie has Brendan Gleeson and the Eyes Wide Shut movie has Rade Šerbedžija. And the relationship between Cruise's character and Thandiwe Newton's character makes specifically Mission: Impossible 2 the sexiest film in the franchise. Hm...

Happy Hacking!!!

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Aiming for laughter with these barrel-full puns


Then it leads us to the fact Woo is not Chinese Bay but Bay is the American Woo.

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