"Face/Off" John Woo's masterpiece action that shakes the emotions to the extreme

At first it was a strange science fiction movie!?

Wu, who is not interested in science fiction, was initially unenthusiastic about this film. However, he was moved by the plot where good and evil are swapped. So he started rewriting the script, transforming it into a story of a confrontation between men set in the present day. He added the stories of each family, which were not in the original script, and took the drama in an emotional direction.

Travolta plays Archer, his first starring role in a Woo film after Broken Arrow. Troy is played by Nicolas Cage, who was on a roll after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and starring in action blockbusters The Rock (1996) and Con Air (1997). He was originally a big fan of Woo's work and had checked out his Hong Kong works. Incidentally, Troy, who aims his gun at Archer at the beginning of the film, has a moustache, which is a nod to Chow Yun-Fat in One of Woo's Hong Kong films , Ballad A Better Tomorrow (1989).

“Face/Off” (c)Photofest / Getty Images

It would be possible with today's digital technology, but it would be impossible to swap faces between Travolta and Cage, so they would essentially have to play dual roles as Archer and Troy. So before filming began, Travolta and Cage spent two weeks together going over what Archer/Troy's gestures would look like after the face swap, and pinpointing what they could and should imitate.

A genius visual aesthetic that enlivens the confrontation between men and men.