John Woo Returning to Western Cinema to Direct Joel Kinnaman in Silent Night

Movies

The legendary John Woo is returning to the director’s seat in the dialogue-less action film Silent Night, starring Joel Kinnaman.

According to Deadline, the story is about a normal father heading into the underworld to avenge his young son’s death; perfectly “normal” thing to do. Capstone is negotiating to finance the movie. Basil Iwanyk (John Wick), Erica Lee, Christian Mercuri, and Lori Tilkin are producing the first Western film by Woo in decades.

Woo returning to the fold has ignited a missing spark in the Hollywood market. After amazing work like Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow, he came to America to direct action films like the absolute meme factory that is Face/Off. Woo then left Hollywood in 2003 after directing Ben Affleck in Paycheck and returned to his home in China.

If Hollywood is getting a classic John Woo action film, that will be a definite shock to the system it’s needed for a long time. In an era of convoluted themes and contrived character complexity, the no-nonsense action of a Hard Target-style throwdown for 90 minutes would be a much-needed shakeup in the film world.