Hollywood doesn't know how to make action films: discuss

Heh, I thought that was "Titanic".

And what do you define as an action film? Wouldn't a swordplay film be a different genre altogether? Or do you think there's a continuity? When would you date the beginning of the "action film" as such--as opposed to the wu xia, or the spy film, etc.?

If you dismiss films like Terminator 2 and Die Hard outright you're coming dangerously close to looking like you have no idea what makes a good action film in the first place. Those two films, and their directors, defined and revitalized the genre in the mid 80's - early 90's.

I wouldn't doubt that if those exact same films where helmed by Asian directors with all Asian casts you'd go a lot easier on them. In fact both Terminator 2 and The Last Boy Scout bear a striking resemblance to Hong Kong action in tone. Boyscout with it's manly posturing, burnt out hard ass anti-hero's and over the top gunplay. T2 with it's melodramtic, borderline operatic acting and story.

What you're doing is making an *aesthetic* choice based on a misplaced bias. Subtitles and cultural divergence can make it a lot easier to swallow or mentally glaze over the flaws of a foreign film than to do the same for a film that comes from your own culture/language.

Seriously, if The Matrix came from Hong Kong do you really think you would hate it so much. It may sound absurd, but I've seen this phenomena before.

Calum, I don't mean to sound rude or disrespectful. Just trying to make a point.

"First of all, the vast majority of Hong Kong action films would not exist in their current form without the influence of "Hollywood" action films"

Certainly Peckinpah influenced Woo and Lam and probably Tsui Hark as well, but the Hong Kong genre of action films remains uniquely Oriental in the same way that the giallo cinema of Italy remains uniquely Italian. Which is not to say that there is no influence by Hollywood in there - just that the films are more driven by the traditions of the films made in that part of the world (I mean, jeez - just take a look at the Bruce Lee movies).

"I have read several interviews with Hong Directors who have stated outright their love for American action films and the influence it's had on their own work"

Ah that would be Woo pleading guilty over having a major love for "The Wild Bunch" and "Raging Bull" wouldn't it?

"Of course it swings both ways and now we are seeing the Hong Kong influence in Hollywood, for better or worse. In many cases it's been a positive thing"

Erm... the Hong Kong influence on Hollywood started with 1968's "You Only Live Twice" and was even more explicit in Moore's second Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun". To say that this is some sort of recent love affair is false.

"If you dismiss films like Terminator 2 and Die Hard outright you're coming dangerously close to looking like you have no idea what makes a good action film in the first place"

Am I? So having an opinion is wrong now is it? How would you answer Pauline Kael who hated the contemporary action film and wrote a particularly good essay attacking "Sudden Impact" when it came out (c.f. Karl French's compilation "Screen Violence"). I do dismiss "die Hard" and "T2" as do many critics - I find them boring, predicatable, largely badly acted and badly scripted pieces of Regan-happy bullshit and have no time for them at all. I have given each of these films a second chance to impress me (in the case of "T2" in a longer "director's cut" a few years back) and I was left feeling "what a waste of money".

"Those two films, and their directors, defined and revitalized the genre in the mid 80's - early 90's"

Yes, just like "Deep Throat" made porn a hot commodity but few have tried to argue it's a good film. Revitalising a genre does not equal good. Tell me - what's your opinion of "I Know What you did Last Summer"???

"I wouldn't doubt that if those exact same films where helmed by Asian directors with all Asian casts you'd go a lot easier on them"

No I really wouldn't. Boredom is boredom in whatever language.

"In fact both Terminator 2 and The Last Boy Scout bear a striking resemblance to Hong Kong action in tone"

Hmmm... only without the unpredictable twists of your average Hong Kong action film and without any of the lavish style inherent in something like "Hard Boiled".

"Boyscout with it's manly posturing, burnt out hard ass anti-hero's and over the top gunplay. T2 with it's melodramtic, borderline operatic acting and story"

Boyscout owes more to John Wayne as Chow Yun Fat. Your description of "T2" I couldn't disagree with more.

"What you're doing is making an *aesthetic* choice based on a misplaced bias"

Erm... listen mate, I'm doing nothing of the sort. I've been in the game of cult circles long enough to know when someone is being a smartass, and I'm that's not me. I've made my point and you're the one throwing obscure, shit Vietnam movies into discussions.

"Subtitles and cultural divergence can make it a lot easier to swallow or mentally glaze over the flaws of a foreign film than to do the same for a film that comes from your own culture/language"

Indeed they can, which is why I've long argued that Godard is a boring bastard.

"Seriously, if The Matrix came from Hong Kong do you really think you would hate it so much. It may sound absurd, but I've seen this phenomena before"

PVC obviously unaware I edit a magazine on the subject and have "seen it all before" as well. Many times. And yes I'd still hate "The Matrix".

What aesthetically about Hollywood action movies do you dislike. I would certainly say from Reagan era action films the reliance on ugly, poorly arranged gunplay would spring to mind. However with the physical necessity of kung fu films the opt out of fast cutting seems to now be the problem that Hollywood is dealing with (and that the Matrix answers with a special effect). Is it merely the rockism of actual stunts? Or is it something inherent in the plotting, the pacing and the setting?

I think we avoid talking about influences since it isn't really pertinent here. Whatever pedigree today's HK and Hollywood directors may or may not have, their work should and can be judged on its own merits.

The relevant exception would be the HK influence on contemporary Hollywood films. As Calum notes there has been an influence for many decades but I think it's still true that the power of this influence increased something fierce in the 1990s, between directors like Tarantino borrowing plots and shot sequences from HK films to actual HK stars and directors coming to work in Hollywood. (It's important to note that such figures as Jackie Chan had tried years before to do this but their efforts had ended largely in failure.)

Well, erm, the fact the actors actually perform their own stunts and complex fight sequences for one (you wouldn't see Bruce Willis or Arnie jump through glass windows, ride on the edge of a speeding bus or have firecrackers shot of their bodies ala Jackie Chan in the "Police Story" movies) and the fact that the films are by and large surprisingly unpredictable (lead characters commonly end up dead at the end... can you see Willis being shot dead in a hail of gun fire at the finale of "Die Hard"?). Nothing is ever predictable in the best of the Hong Kong films, they are - technically - more stylish, better directed, more complex plots (instead of "hijacker in tower block, a dead body every five minutes") definately better acted (Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat, to name two obvious names, are incredible screen performers) and the movies rely more on the martial arts skills and charisma of their performers than simply blowing something up every few seconds to keep the audience awake. Besides, the high concept film (such a "Die Hard") really started the glut in American cinema where summer blockbusters had to be braindead noisy largely artless bollocks.

I've had some fun with these kind of movies (to my surprise I got a kick out of "xXx") but I always just wish I was watching something "Hard Boiled" again. For the record, the common opinion is that Woo hasn't made a worthwhile film since going Hollywood (despite the mainstream gushing given to the lousy "Face/Off"). I digress, however, as I actually enjoyed "Windtalkers".

Unfortunately I can't help but thinking that some of PVC's suggestions above about cultural bias rings true. (Certainly I assume you are in little position to talk aboiut the vocal acting skills of Chow and Jackie since you're busy reading the subtitles. What comes off as great acting subtitled can be hammy with the vocals).

I'm only willing to continue this if you can reference more examples of Hong Kong cinema than the first two Better Tommorow films. I surely don't need to rattle of the many Hong Kong movies which take totally unpredictable twists and turns.

And Hollywood is not above pulling the "twin" stunt (Erm... the "Terminator" sequels for one, "City Slickers 2" for another).

It would help your argument if you did. Otherwise your complaints ring pretty hollow and unconvincing.

I'll be back later but right now I'll go through Woo's films...

A Bullet in the Head - nice guy hero ends up retarded after being shot by his treacherous mate in the skull. His other best friend then has to put him out of his misery.

Hard Boiled - only one of the two lead stars make it to the end.

The Killer - see below.

A Better Tommorow - Chow Yun Fat bites the big one.

A Better Tommorow 2 - the hero of A Better Tommorow is killed before the final reel ever begins.

It's been a while since I've seen "Heroes Shed no Tears" but if memory serves me correctly it's pretty much more the same "who the fuck will see the end credits" stuff as the above.

I actually agree with Calum overall, I think Hollywood films lost a lot of their lustre since the '60s and often don't seem to know what they're good at. By contrast even a run of the mill HK film from the 1990s (well OK, what passes for run of the mill but has actually made it past the gatekeepers [distributors, etc.] in the West) was inventive and worth enthusing over by comparison.

But given that Hollywood is one of the capitals of world film production with many talented people working therein, I think it's inevitable that the Hollywood genres haven't completely deteriorated and indeed produce very notable work every so often.

City on Fire - the hero dies.
Full Alert - the sympathetic villain dies.
A Better Tomorrow 2 - all heroes bleed to death.
Fallen Angels - the good hitman dies.
Duel to the Death - both heroes die.

Actually, I would be surprised to see a HK action movie where the hero does get the girl in the end.

(also invoking Kael to support this arg is a dubious move i think, since much of what she disapproved of in US action films can be found by the truckload in HK ones too. Her bone-to-pick with Sudden Impact probably has as much to do w/ her feeling that Dirty Harry was just a notch beneath Hitler as w/ any misgivings about the genre in general. And when she said "I need a vacation from gunshots" she was talking about John Woo)

(i know pvc's "cultural bias" suggestion is true in my case; i've treated quite a few HK action stories as "unpredictable" when i know perfectly well what i really mean = "what the hell is happening?? this is utter nonsense")

It's ok by now, sure, but if you keep in mind that esp. in older films (up to, say, the mid-90s?) the default rule is "boy doesn't get girl", HK films aren't all that unpredictable.

I believe it was the Chinese Opera tradition that had female impersonators rather than actual females (similar to the earliest Japanese films). Unfortunately I think that most if not all prewar HK films are lost.

That said it is amazing to note how chaste HK films are until very recently. Even in he works of Wong Jing, where almost anything goes, there is not much development of boy-girl love outside the most juvenile and rudimentary cliches. Of course Shanghai Blues (from the mid-'80s) can work wodners with such cliches but they are the same cliches that American films were using in the 1940s!

most action flicks are not aimed at the pleasing the critics or for that matter being artistic in any other way than a memorable display of spectacle. a good script is the last thing they need, reasonable to witty dialogue is a good plus point to add another string to the entertainment bow, but the storylines have always been creaking and ridiculous. surely that's the point.

most "good" action directors of recent years are reknowned for their visual tricks. some can throw in dialogue skills, others suspense but mostly it is good old fashioned pretty lights flashing that capture eye or our old mate slo-mo.

the matrix was crap in every other area apart from the spectacle where it was original. T2 exactly the same, except slightly better dialogue. john woo is peckinpah without the hang ups and therefore a whole lot more superficial.

please dont start quoting kael to each other. quoting other critics is entirely pointless. this isnt an english essay.

How about The Killer = "Le Samourai goes musical"? Or Bullet in the Head = "chinese Deer Hunter"?

Unfortunately, transparent plots also lead to little replay value, and in the end the most memorable films turn out to be dramas with action, e.g. Heat and Crouching Tiger. (In the case of CTHG vs. HK films wherein the former has been decried by HK 'purists' as peddling to Western sensibilities, well, the proof in the pudding is that even when I got tired of say Michelle Yeoh fiting Zhang Ziyi, there was still the storyline that I could enjoy, whereas I wouldn't care if I never saw Iron Monkey again.)

For some reason though I'm a bit afraid for Hero, the PRC's answer to Crouching Tiger courtesy Zhang Yimou.

what i really mean is inventive action sequences > inventive storylines in an actioner; inventive storylines > inventive action sequences in a drama. eastern flicks probably fail as often as western flicks when combining the two. i've definitely seen far more bad westerns than easterns but it stands to reason the east have their fair share of crap, doesn't it? it's just not inflicted on us so much over here.