For Immediate Release - Famed action director John Woo has annouced plans to release special editions of his most famous Hong Kong action movies, replacing the foley effects with more realistic gunshot noises.
"I never quite got comfortable with the effects back when I was making the films, but I did the best I could with the technology that existed at the time," Woo said to the Hong Kong Economic Times. "Your films never get finished, they get abandoned, but the technology now exists to do perfect digital audio effects to properly mimic the experience of being thrust into an intense pitched gun battle. I'm looking forward to going back and revisiting my films and getting the cacophony pitch perfect."
When asked if he would also be revising the plot of his films, Woo responded, "Not significantly, no. We will be revising the Mexican stand-offs in The Killer, Hard-Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, A Better Tomorrow II--virtually any of my films with Chow Yun Fat--to fix it so that he fires first--I never bought that he would wait to be fired upon--that was just put in there to make him seem noble rather than a cold-blooded killer, but that's a load of horsepuckey. I mean, the guys in those movies had a gun on him--shooting first is perfectly understandable!"
Woo also announced tentative plans to produce a new prequel trilogy to the A Better Tomorrow Trilogy, perhaps featuring a comical Jamaican drug dealer who he promised, "the kids will find hilarious," and will provide a new point of entry for a new generation of fans.
"Most of the improvements will be cosmetic, though," Woo continued. "The films will be the same films you loved before, only now they will feature blisteringly realistic sounds to accurately convey the sounds of being right in the middle of an assault of mixed small arms, such as Uzis, Mini Uzis, Micro Uzis, AKMSUs, assorted AK-47s, Norinco Type 56 AK knock-offs, M16A1 variants, Glock 17s, various shotguns, and of course, the famed Beretta 92FS. Our foley artist is even differentiating between hollowpoint and full metal jacket round fire, bringing the action scenes to you in total fidelity!"
Woo continued, "Finally, we have also digitally replaced all instances of walkie talkies in my films with twin Colt M1911As. Kids look up to these movies, and we were afraid we were conveying the wrong message to their impressionable minds. By digitally replacing the walkie talkies with sidearms, we are no longer condoning the cowardly act of calling for back-up rather than the self-sufficiency of dealing with all issues by one man leaping sideways while blazing away with both barrels."
Woo noted that they were also considering plans to edit his American-made action movies by digitally replacing Christian Slater in Broken Arrow with Chow Yun Fat, and John Travolta with Nicholas Cage.