Aside from being one of the most respected Hollywood action directors on the planet, John Woo has also enjoyed a healthy relationship with the video games industry.
A few years back, he famously created a video-game sequel to his classic film, Hard Boiled. Strangehold captured the likeness and voice of Chow Yunn-fat and followed in the vein of action/adventure Max Payne with bullet-time, big explosions and hard-hitting story. This was also the first game to make use of Unreal Engine 3 and was the first project both Yunn-fat and Woo had worked on since the original Hard Boiled. The game was received very well by the critics and is still one of the finest examples of a game based on a movie we’ve seen out in the wild.
Woo’s latest is an entirely new intellectual property and currently a mobile exclusive. A logical move, considering the amount of people with access to the platform. The biggest surprise however, is that this is a more entertaining skirmish than his Hard Boiled follow-up.
Zach writes: When people ask me to name some of my favourite action movies, John Woo’s Hard Boiled is usually one of the first titles out of my mouth following the initial spew of all things Van Damme.
Legendary director John Woo is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. In addition to being an acclaimed director and major influence on the action genre, he has also dipped his hand in other media, most notably videogames. It’s been about 7 years since John Woo’s underrated Stranglehold hit consoles, and now, the director has lent his name to Bloodstroke, an action shoot-em-up game with lots of style, but not much substance.
Mobile game publishers Chillingo have roped in Hollywood director John Woo to help build their gorgeous new isometric on-rails slasher/shooter. Continue Play's Richard Moran has a full review.
