PRESS: Would you have any objection to your children watching this?
WOO: No, Ha. No, because they understand my work, they understand my films very well, they will use another angle to watch a film. They watch it as a movie, they won't get any influence form it. My children are still very straight-laced. Very well behaved. Ha ha.
PRESS: Your work is often compared to Peckinpah and Scorsese. Are they people who did indeed influence you as a young filmmaker?
WOO: Yes. I started as a film lover. When I first fell in love with film in the 60's, I was very, influenced by the French director Jean Pierre Melville. And also Francois Trouffaut, Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.
At that time there was no film school in Hong Kong, and my family was too poor to send me for any schooling after high school. Since we were so crazy about the movies, we learned the films from all the masters. At the time the European art film was so popular in Hong Kong.
We learned from all the great masters at the time. And also we stole the film books form the libraries and bookstores. That's how I learned film.
PRESS: Stole the books?
Yes, You have to forgive me because we were very poor. But I think I have paid back society. I try to make a lot of good films [to make up for the theft].
PRESS: Was the New Orleans setting an attraction to "Hard Target"? It's fairly atmospheric like much of your film work.
WOO: New Orleans is a fascinating city. It has that faded glory. It has a lot of from the French. And since I was so fond of the French from my earlier times. I've got pretty strong feelings for New Orleans.
PRESS: Usually in your Hong Kong movies you have enemies who respect one another. This is missing in "Hard Target."
WOO: Well "Hard Target" wasn't my script. I'm working on my own script about the old generation and the new generation and their conflicts. [It's about] an old killer and a young one.
In my films I try to remind us of what we have lost from the old days, and what we have to do to get it back again. We need things like friendship, honor, equality and love.
PRESS: Since gangsters feature so prominently in your work, I wonder if you think the world of gangsters is a separate world exemplary of those values?
WOO: A gangster world only provides a colorful background for the characters. I'm more interested in bringing out the spirit of the characters not the background. I'm not interested in the gangsters at all. I hope the audience can see that. I don't want to mislead the audience with all the violence.
PRESS: Why do you use bird imagery so prominently in so many of your films?
WOO: Well, I'm a Christian and the birds are a powerful Christian symbol. Sometimes I use the birds to represent innocence. When people are killing and in war there are always innocent people being killed. And also I like to use the pigeon to represent the presence of spiritual things.
For example, in "The Killer" whenever the two main characters get shot, I cut to the pigeons flying and the sign of the holy cross. I use this montage cutting to try to tell that they have the pure and innocent inside and to glorify their self sacrifice.
When I was young, I always got the impression from the Bible or from paintings in church ... I was always impressed by the pigeon as a symbol of peace and love. I like to put some Bible imagery in my movies.