Venice film fest honours director John Woo

The Venice film festival honoured Hong Kong director John Woo with a life time achievement award Golden Lion. The 64-year-old director is one of the few Asian filmmakers to enjoy box office success in Hollywood as well as at home. Woo was awarded the Golden Lion at he same day when his latest film Reign of Assassins was showcased, which he co-directed with Su Chao-Pin and also produced. Woo, best known for his choreographed action sequences, was active in Hong Kong during the 1970s and 1980s and in 1989 he released The Killer, which drew the attention of US filmmakers and helped him make the jump to Hollywood. He moved there in 1993, and directed Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target the same year. Three years later he made Broken Arrow starring John Travolta, and teamed up with the actor again in 1997 in Face/Off, a financial and critical hit. In 2000, Woo directed Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II, which was the worlds biggest earner that year, but his next two US projects failed to match that success. He has since returned to China to direct. Reign of Assassins, set in ancient China, stars Michelle Yeoh as a skilled assassin who is on a mission to return the remains of a mystical Buddhist monk, believed to hold special powers, to their resting place. Along the way, she falls in love with a man named Jiang, whose father was killed by her gang. Unaware that he also is a trained martial artist, love blossoms but tensions arise as the truth of her past unfolds.