Manhunt
At certain points in his new film, John Woo had me speaking like John Travolta’s character in “Broken Arrow” after the nuclear warhead detonates, “I said goddamn what a rush!” John Woo has given me several moments like that throughout his career, and my 22 year history with his films; most notably, during “The Killer,” “Hard-Boiled” and “Face/Off.” With his first film I’ve seen from him in 9 years, “Manhunt,” he had me juiced up with his delirious way with action insanity. That I had to watch it via Netflix rather than in a theatre is disappointing, but he still won me over handily.
One of the most unfortunate things about John Woo’s American filmmaking career, which only lasted from 1993-2003, is that no one seemed to really know how to pitch stories and films that played to ALL of his strengths, as a director and storyteller. His best film in that time was, far and away, “Face/Off,” with most of his other films just programmed action efforts that were kind of indistinguishable from what Hollywood was putting out, save for Woo’s staging and use of slow-motion. In 2009, he finally returned to the big screen with a period war epic I loved, “Red Cliff,” but otherwise, I’ve missed his voice in movies. (I hope his two-part “The Crossing” gets a release, sometime. I haven’t seen that.) I don’t know if “Manhunt,” which he based on a book by Jukô Nishimura (and is a remake of a 1978 thriller starring one of his idols, Ken Takakura), can be seen as a step back into prominence in the contemporary action arena for Woo (his announced remake of “The Killer” with Lupita Nyong’o in Chow Yun-Fat’s role sounds more promising), but it’s as good of a head start as he’s had in ages, and the freedom of Netflix (in terms of what he can do with his action) is a good way to remind people, “Oh yeah, this is why he mattered.”
“Manhunt” is about a lawyer for a Chinese pharmaceutical company, Du Qiu (Hanyu Zhang), who finds himself on the run when he wakes up one morning, and there is a dead woman in his bed with him. He doesn’t know the woman, and he has alibi for the time of death in a young woman (Mayumi, played by Qi Wei) whom he met at the party. But the detective brought in on the case, Yamura (Masaharu Fukuyama), is determined to bring him in after he escapes initial police custody, although it’s not long until Yamura starts to see things not quite adding up in what appears to be a clear-cut case of murder. When a pair of sister assassins (Ji-won Ha and Angeles Woo) start to hunt Du Qiu down, as well, the circumstances of Du Qiu’s framing gets even more complicated, as does the story when Mayumi becomes a big part of it.
When I say this story gets complicated, I’m not kidding- this REALLY gets complicated, and kind of ridiculous when you figure that the assassins are juiced up with a super serum like Captain America by the company Du Qiu works for. Woo saw this film as a way for himself to get back into back-to-basics action filmmaking after his American years, and the two giant productions of “Red Cliff” and “The Crossing,” and plot complications aside, this definitely feels closer to “A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer” and “Hard-Boiled” in terms of style and tone, and even has his thematic sweet-spot of brotherhood between adversaries covered with Du Qiu and Yamura at the start of the film. To clarify- I do NOT think this film is as good as any of those classics from Woo’s Hong Kong days, but it’s better (in my opinion) than most of his American output, as he takes another spin with Hitchcock’s immortal story structure of the “innocent man on the run” after 2003’s “Paycheck,” only this time, goosed with some of the most deliriously-crazy action he’s put on screen in over 20 years. Woo fans owe it to themselves to watch this film just for the jetski chase and this film’s final 20 minutes alone, which are as good of set pieces as the director has ever put in front of the camera. And yes, there are doves, as well, and the way he works them in made my heart happy with joy.
I remember John Woo saying after September 11 that he had lost his appetite for the type of action films he was known for, at the time, and how he was going to shift his attention elsewhere. I think “Manhunt” is an admission on Woo’s part that he missed that type of filmmaking, and honestly, I’ve missed this type of film from him. I’ve missed it not because I can’t watch “Face/Off” or “The Killer” or “Hard-Boiled” any old time I want (I can), but because his voice feels vital to me, even if he doesn’t always create great films. Filmmakers like Woo and Luc Besson (who stepped away from action directing for a time, as well, and has a similarly strong personal voice) matter because they are the standard-bearers, and the template-creators, for the type of action movies we see nowadays. They have their own styles to the point where, when they are absent from our film landscape, it’s noticeable. (I would even put Richard Donner in this category, as well, if only to remind people how tragic it is that he hasn’t directed a film in 12 years.) If “Manhunt” represents a new beginning for Woo, I want all of what he has in store, similarly to when I first discovered his work two decades ago after he made his way to American.
