10 Smartest Characters In John Woo Action Movies

10 Smartest Characters In John Woo Action Movies

John Woo’s movies feature highly complex characters, some of whom are extremely intelligent. They have to be, in order to survive all that gunfire.

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John Woo is best known for directing a ton of ultra-stylish action movie hits on both sides of the world, but he’s also a man with a keen eye for characters, and how they move the story along. Many of his characters are highly complex, with real-world problems they are forced to contend with on a daily basis.

They’re also quite intelligent, be it a hard-nosed police inspector, a career criminal, or a conflicted hitman. With education, training, and street smarts at their disposal, these characters manage to make John Woo films much more interesting than those of standard action fare.

10 Ah Jong (The Killer, 1989)

Chow Yun-fat starred in this explosive John Woo epic as an assassin who tries to make amends after accidentally blinding a singer during a hit. Though unscrupulous for his line of work, Ah Jong was a redeemable character, given his desire to do good as an attempt at redemption.

He was also a very smart character who could size up scores of enemies at one time, and come up with inventive solutions to take them out. No tool was too blunt for him to utilize, and that allowed him to stay alive amidst a hail of gunfire. Outside of a combat zone, Ah Jong was far from a brute, but rather an introspective and thoughtful character.

9 Tequila (Hard Boiled, 1992)

Few of John Woo’s characters are as smart and resourceful as Yuen Ho-yan, otherwise known as “Tequila,” in one of Woo’s highest-rated action movies. This Hong Kong Inspector battled multiple criminal elements throughout his career, including two rival gangs trying to secure dominance within the gun smuggling market.

Tequila was extremely reckless, as evidenced by the fact that he killed a gangster responsible for murdering his partner. Yet, he was still an extremely intelligent investigator with a lot of street smarts, and how to take care of himself. When it came to fighting, Tequila had to think fast on his feet in order to keep from being riddled with bullets.

8 Chance Boudreaux (Hard Target, 1993)

Hard Target was John Woo’s big break into the American market, and it was a stellar introduction. He introduced the character of Chance Boudreaux – played by martial arts icon Jean-Claude Van Damme in one of his best movies – a down-on-his-luck former Marine with exceptional fighting skills, and a knack for investigation. He’s hired by the daughter of a homeless vet who was found gunned down and left for dead.

Boudreaux eventually determines that he took part in a life-or-death game for the amusement of wealthy sport hunters. His street smarts soon took a backseat to his fighting abilities, allowing Boudreaux to intelligently engage scores of foes with high-powered weapons, and years of battle training, all while remaining cool and collected.

7 Major Deakins (Broken Arrow, 1996)

Actor John Travolta first played a John Woo villain in 1996’s Broken Arrow, and it was a formula that he would later repeat in the following year with Face/Off. In this film, he played Major “Deak” Deakins, a U.S. Air Force pilot who hatches a scheme to hijack two nuclear warheads from a stealth bomber.

Though reckless and impulsive, Deakins was also smart enough to have concocted a very precise plan. In the end, it would get derailed by Captain Riley Hale, played by Christian Slater, forcing Deakins to the point of utter frustration. Had it not been for Hale’s intervention, he would have succeeded with his plan.

6 Castor Troy (Face/Off, 1997)

The violent and chaotic Castor Troy was the despicable villain of Face/Off, but he was also a very methodical and intelligent person who knew how to play his enemies. The fun began when Castor swapped faces with his arch-nemesis, Sean Archer, a special agent working for the FBI.

With personal skin in the game, Archer was forced to impersonate Troy, while Troy infiltrated Archer’s personal life. Though his newfound personality quirks puzzled his family, they failed to suspect the obvious. Even with Archer’s face, Troy had to pull out all the stops, utilizing his intelligence to stay hidden, and under the radar. In trying to successfully maintain his cover, Castor showed a shrewdness that most movie villains don’t possess. For a good while, no one suspects his true motives, and that’s due to his quick thinking.

5 Ethan Hunt (Mission: Impossible 2, 2000)

John Woo directed the follow-up to 1996’s breakout hit Mission: Impossible, based on the long-running TV series of the same name. The film brought back the ever-quotable and charismatic Ethan Hunt, played by Tom Cruise, who squares off against a rogue IMF agent trying to acquire a deadly virus for the sake of money and power.

This film relied more on Woo’s signature action sequence style, as opposed to the methodical story building of the original. However, Hunt was just as resourceful and intelligent as before, and implemented a large bag of tricks and techniques to almost single-handedly take down Sean Ambrose, the film’s antagonist.

4 Ben Yahzee (Windtalkers, 2002)

It doesn’t get as much love as many other critically acclaimed WWII films out there, but Windtalkers is nevertheless an interesting tale that deserves to be told. The story involves two Navajo code talkers who were part of an elite group able to carry coded messages to the U.S., which helped them win the conflict against Japan during the Pacific theater. One of the code talkers, Ben Yahzee, represents one of Woo’s most intelligent characters.

The ability to both memorize, and utilize the code talker system requires a lot of brainpower, and Yahzee had a lot of it. When he wasn’t busy transmitting messages, his character was revealed to be more than the sum of his abilities, showing how intelligent and thoughtful he really was.

3 Ben (Bullet In The Head, 1990)

John Woo made a huge name for himself with films like Bullet in the Head, which served as a template moving forward. It was also an example of how Woo used his characters to tackle subject matter, and Ben (played by Shang-Chi’s Tony Leung) was one of the best.

Ben was a resourceful and intelligent gang member who knew how to seek out opportunities and exploit them. He was more thoughtful than the common thug and even set out to get married for the sake of a stable life. When things fell apart between him and his childhood friends, Ben emerged from the rubble, thanks in large part to his careful planning, and unwillingness to jump into danger without an exit strategy.

2 Drizzle (Reign Of Assassins, 2010)

Martial arts icon Michelle Yeoh starred in this 2010 film as an assassin named Drizzle, known for her excellent fighting techniques, who tries to leave the business and live a normal life. She assumes the identity of a woman named Zeng Jing and takes up a job as a merchant.

When her old enemies come gunning for her, Drizzle must exercise all of her training, including some lessons learned from a powerful master named Wisdom, to defeat them. She’s a complex, capable, and highly intelligent character who stands tall among John Woo’s film roster.

1 Michael Jennings (Paycheck, 2003)

Michael Jennings represents one of John Woo’s most intelligent characters, primarily due to his inventive career choice. Jennings’ job was to contract himself out to various bidders, in order to reverse engineer particular technologies at their behest. Then, he would allow his memory of the event to be wiped, for the purpose of security.

When Jennings was targeted for death by a client, he had to take his innovative smarts and apply them to stay alive. He ended up becoming a difficult liability to erase, and even the FBI couldn’t get a handle on him. What makes Jennings a truly genius character is the device he builds in the film, which leads to all the chaos.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/john-woo-action-movies-smartest-characters/

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