Why John Woo’s Hard Target was so underwhelming, and the hard lessons it taught the director about making movies in Hollywood
- A standard action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hard Target had none of the signature style or themes of a Woo film. There were a few reasons for that
- Woo found Hollywood producers wouldn’t give him the free rein he was used to during shooting, and that Van Damme wanted his say too – especially on its editing
When John Woo Yu-sum left Hong Kong for Hollywood in early 1992, Hongkongers were generally indifferent, although some film fans felt betrayed. Local films still ruled at the box office and there was little interest in Hollywood films.
So when Woo’s first Hollywood film, Hard Target, a run-of-the-mill actioner starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, opened in Hong Kong in 1993, it was met with derision.
The workmanlike movie featured nothing of Woo’s hallmark style and addressed none of the director’s usual themes of male bonding, brotherhood and justice. “It seems like the US studio has flattened out Woo’s emotional, hyper-violent style and turned him into just another action director,” this writer wrote at the time.
Woo played down the violence for his next production, the lame special-effects actioner Broken Arrow, and it wasn’t until Face/Off, his third US film, that his signature style showed up in his American work.
Here’s the story of what went wrong with Hard Target.