Some stuff about John Woo

Mr. Woo's signatures � the slow-motion amplification of violence, the air thick with wood chips and shattered glass; the impossibly cool hero, who leaps and rolls through a battle with guns blazing in both hands; the intimate stand-offs between antagonists, their gun barrels pressed into each other's foreheads � have been imitated by filmmakers as different as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg. From "The Matrix" to "Spider-Man," it is hard to cite a major action film in recent years that hasn't incorporated Mr. Woo's attitudes and innovations.