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John Woo has re-mixed the basic ingredients of the Hong Kong action film and created a new recipe that others try to emulate. Like a great chef he has cooked up haute cuisine using the same basic materials as his contemporaries, but has shifted the measurements so that the final result is finer and more complex. He incorporates the techniques learned from directors he has worked with and/or admires while putting his own unique stamp on the action films he creates. Woo credits his distinctive style to various events early in his life, these factors have influenced the theme and focus of those films that we most closely associate with the Woo technique. In an interview conducted at a film retrospective shown at the Seattle Art Museum, John Woo offered extensive insights into the ingredients and influences of his upbringing that we now recognize as the essence of his directorial style. I truly believe in friendship. When I was young, I got a lot of help from a friend. I guess I'm pretty traditional. In old Chinese stories, people sacrifice themselves for friends. They have so much honor and sense of morality. These are qualities I've always admired. When I was kid, our family was living in the slums. We lived in a very bad neigh