by Nikk Nelson, Staff Writer

“You assured me everything would go smoothly.
Everything is going smoothly, I assure you.”

Growing up in the 90’s, I was assured of at least two things, cinematically: Pauly Shore and big, dumb action movies. I love both equally and fiercely. Like a lot of tykes my age, I’m sure thanks in no small part to The Karate Kid (1984), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, I was obsessed with martial arts. If a movie had ‘Ninja’ in the title, I rented it and watched it over and over again. Mostly, I would put it on in the background while I cartwheeled around my basement, kick-punching the shit out of thin air. In the early to mid-nineties, there was no shortage of what the We Hate Movies Podcast dubbed ‘white-guy karate movies’ so I had a steady stream of content throughout the decade to keep my developing imagination enraptured. My favorite was No Retreat No Surrender (1986) featuring, in his first film, the man who would go on to be the king of this brand of action movie: Jean-Claude Van Damme.

My older brother would tell you, he regretted the day he put Bloodsport (1988) into the VCR. After it was over, I begged him to rewind it and let us watch it again. He was annoyed but did it. The third time, he was barely containing his rage and so the fourth time in a row I watched it, it was in the clutches of a figure-four leglock with my brother applying pressure every time I even thought about asking to watch it again or if I wouldn’t stop singing “Fight to Survive”. It was totally worth it. From that day on, anything JCVD was rented and watched to death. He had a string of hit movies, each bigger than the last, the peak of which would bring Hong Kong superstar action director John Woo to the United States for the first time. Next to Bloodsport, Hard Target (1993) is my favorite JCVD movie and John Woo’s style is absolutely why—flying birds punctuating tense action moments; guns, often Berettas, with seemingly infinite magazine sizes; Mexican standoffs; blood packs/capsules and squibs for days. 

Unfortunately for JCVD, the combination of a crippling cocaine addiction and Street Fighter (1994) sent his career into a decades-long, almost irrecoverable, direct-to-video tailspin. I still root for him every day and was super pissed when Amazon canceled Jean-Claude Van Johnson. It’s my Firefly. John Woo, on the other hand, having now been the first Chinese director to helm a major studio project, which doubled its return on investment at the box office, was enjoying international success. He would follow up Hard Target with one of my favorite action movies of all time, Broken Arrow (1996). By the mid-nineties, the Die Hard (1988) formula was mixing with military backdrops in hits like Under Siege (1992). 1996 alone saw the release of Broken Arrow, The Rock, and Executive Decision.

Hot off his Pulp Fiction (1994) revival, John Travolta plays rogue Air Force pilot Vic Deakins, who hijacks two live nuclear warheads and holds them for ransom a stealth bomber training exercise. Travolta’s villainous turn, thanks in so small part to the script by Speed (1994) writer Graham Yost, is cool as can be and imminently quotable: “You’re out of your mind/Yeah…ain’t it cool?” His performance alone is worth the watch but the supporting cast is also stacked with people I love. Aside from the perfectly balanced opposing performance from Christian Slater, you have Delroy Lindo, Howie Long, Bob Gunton, Frank Whaley, and last but not least, the incredible Samantha Mathis turning in a performance as park ranger Terry Carmichael that is equally heroic and as vital to the action as Slater’s Captain Hale. Most women were hopelessly relegated to damsel in distress roles in these kinds of action movies but Terry Carmichael will have none of that shit. She kicks nine kinds of ass and shares equal credit in saving the world. Re-watching the movie this week in preparation for this review (I own it on bluray), I had a small revelation about her character I never had before—she’s a park ranger. She is very against the detonation of a nuclear warhead in her park on the principle of environmental conservation alone. It made me love the performance even more. 

Broken Arrow was another hit for John Woo, again doubling its investment. A year later, John would totally out-Woo himself (no I’m not sorry) with the action movie that is arguably the peak of this entire sub-genre, Face/Off (1997). John Travolta and Nicolas Cage trade faces. If you haven’t seen it, that statement alone should motivate you to rectify that immediately. It’s John Woo turned up to eleven. And it worked. Face/Off would go on to gross close to a quarter of a billion dollars. But, as is always the case in Hollywood, what goes up must come down, and in 1999, The Matrix changed action movies forever. It’s ironic because, on the one hand, it made John Woo’s brand of action movie obsolete. But on the other hand, you see his fingerprints all over it. In 2000, John Woo tried to America too hard with Tom Cruise and Limp Bizkit in Mission: Impossible II. In my opinion, De Palma’s Mission: Impossible (1996) is the only one that should exist. They wanted to take the franchise in a big-budget, action-y direction so of course you would hire John Woo but I can’t stand that movie or the entire franchise. Put an infinite-round Beretta to my head and I won’t be able to tell any of those goddamn movies apart. 

Mission: Impossible II was still a cajunga hit, raking in double what Face/Off did—over half a billion dollars. It would prove to be Woo’s commercial peak. Following up MI: II with the critical/commercial flops Windtalkers (2002) and Paycheck (2003), John Woo returned to directing films in China. I love Paycheck by the way, well worth a watch—based on a Philip K. Dick short story. It is undeniable that John Woo left his mark on action cinema, specifically American action cinema. There isn’t an action movie released, from the Resident Evil franchise to John Wick, where I don’t pick out John Woo’s influence. It could be a split-second, one bird flying in and out of frame, but it’s there.