Action man Woo on target with Broken Arrow

JOHN WOO spent all of Monday night staring out his hotel room window. 'I have a lot of memories,' he said. 'I couldn't sleep all night. I miss Hong Kong a lot.' Still, it's been 21/2 years since this A-list Hollywood director last visited his home town, and even then it was only for a three-day promotional tour. This time, he stayed in the territory for just one day and has no plans to return.

'I am too busy,' he said.

Woo, 47, is running on nervous energy. Always a chain-smoker, he's more edgy and fidgety than ever before.

On February 9, his first movie since the Jean Claude Van Damme-vehicle Hard Target will be released in a US nationwide blitz; a US$60 million (about HK$460 million) all-action production from the writer of Speed, it stars John Travolta and Christian Slater and carries the hopes of 20th Century Fox on its back.

'The feeling is heavy,' he explains, stubbing out another cigarette. 'Very heavy.' Woo, the first Asian to direct a mega-budget studio release, has a small set of shoulders to carry such a burden. 'Whether or not Broken Arrow is successful, I still think Hollywood can appreciate Hong Kong talent,' he said in halting English - five years in Hollywood still haven't made him fluent. 'But yes, I do know that the success of this movie means a lot to many people. There's only so many things I can take on my shoulder, though. It's hard enough to make a film.' So what's it like on day one, in Arizona, when the cameras start rolling on your biggest picture and the calculator goes into hyper-drive? 'I felt more pressure, I was more focused than ever before,' he said. 'On the set, I was more nervous and tense; not smiling, totally on target. Some people were scared to look at me. John [Travolta] and Christian [Slater], when they saw me like that, they would make bad jokes. Christian would pretend he was Chow Yun-fatt in a John Woo movie, running around in slow motion and shooting two guns at me.

'It made me laugh, so I was probably more relaxed than ever before with the actors. This kind of relationship made me very happy.' But that was the only time Slater or Travolta got to shoot two guns. And if you're looking for a 'John Woo movie' in Broken Arrow - an obscenely high body count, blood-spurting corpses, slow-mo backflips - you won't find it.

'I don't think I will go back to that, ever,' said the director.