John Woo preps his wartime romance, 'Love and Let Love'

I just had a conversation about John Woo the other day, about why his transition from Hong Kong cinema to making American action flicks turned out so badly. It's not that his kinetic, gun blazing style didn't have a place, but that he generally made some piss poor decisions in the films he undertook. I mean, movies like Broken Arrow and Face/Off sucked, but they have their share of fans. Unfortunately from there he had the misfortune of directing Robert Towne's crappy Mission: Impossible sequel. His war film, Windtalkers, was a wild misfire. And Paycheck, an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story, was so flat and dull I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I just walked out.

Woo made the right career move and stepped fully back into Asian cinema, with his sprawling historical epic, Red Cliff, possibly his finest work to date. Well now he's back again, with a film he's been trying to get rolling for a couple of years now. Once titled 1949, the romance film now goes by Love and Let Love, and will kick off production next month.

Starring Song Kye-Ho(The Grandmasters) as a wealthy and driven woman in Shanghai, the story takes place in the aftermath of WWII and through the Chinese Civil War. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vets Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen co-star.

We might not see the film here for awhile, but we get it and it's successful. I'd like to see Woo have a place in Hollywood again to fill the action flick void guys like Simon West and Neveldine/Taylor just can't seem to fill. [Korea Herald via ThePlaylist]