Hong Kong and Vine  Facing off with Face/Off director John Woo
Face/Off, director John Woo's new action film with John Travolta
and Nicolas Cage, is Paramount's big summer hope. Five years
ago, when Warner Bros. offered Woo the project, he passed on it
--he didn't want to do science fiction, preferring something
more emotional, he says. Later, producer Michael Douglas brought
it to him at Paramount with a new script that mined a deeper
emotional vein. "I changed my mind," says Woo.  Set in the near
future, the film depicts a cop (Travolta) and a bad guy (Cage)
who, for different purposes, surgically exchange faces. So,
while Cage is nominally the villain and Travolta the hero, for
three quarters of the movie they're playing each other's roles.
Unlike Woo's other U.S. releases (Hard Target and Broken Arrow,
also starring Travolta), Face/Off should delight his fans
because it's full of the elements from his Hong Kong films that
attracted Hollywood in the first place: juiced-up action
choreography and editing,