In the words of writer-director Quentin Tarantino, whose film Reservoir Dogs stretched the boundaries of the police thriller, "John Woo is the most exciting director to emerge in action cinema since Sergio Leone." Tarantino's remark, which appeared in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, likens the Hong Kong filmmaker to Leone, the inventor of the "spaghetti Western." It is an apt comparison in numerous respects, for, like Leone, Woo has brought an auteur's sensibility to a less-than-revered cinematic form, and like his Italian forebear, he has revitalized that form by injecting a native passion into an American tradition.

After shaking up the Hong Kong film world with his distinctive blend of choreographed violence and melodrama, Woo became the first Asian director to make a mainstream Hollywood film when he directed the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target in 1993. Although studio politics and the ratings system forced him to...