If you’ve been to the cinemas lately, scrolled through the Action catalogue on Netflix looking for a guilty pleasure, or seen that video of Keanu Reeves in gun training for John Wick 2, you’ve more than likely been exposed to some form of Hong Kong action cinema; either in its purest form (Jackie Chan has been very prevalent in Netflix’s recent additions), or through some form of cultural transposition (Kill Bill, Kingsman and its ilk). Though originally popular through its roots in the kung-fu films of the 70s, Hong Kong action cinema has prevailed in the Hollywood system via its influential triad films: a modern reworking of the punches and kicks thrown by Bruce Lee into a hail of gunfire discharged by Chow Yun-fat, often dubbed “gun-fu”. These Hong Kong crime films—typically investing themselves in the lives of triads—were popularised in the 80s by John Woo and his breakout film, A Better Tomorrow, which paved the way for a long line of highly stylised, crime-centric action films. That Woo and Yun-fat would later move into Hollywood cinema (Woo successfully with Hard Target in 1993, Yun-fat less successfully with The Replacement Killers in 1998), the idea that the choreography and stylisation that made Hong Kong’s action cinema so popular would later be transposed comes as no surprise.

The dynamic between good and evil—manifesting in the dichotomy between the police and the triads—that Woo’s Hong Kong work had become renowned for would find its epitome in his 1997 Hollywood feature, Face/Off. The bodies that usually danced between the light and the dark would become literal in their swapping of identity (Travolta as Cage, Cage as Travolta), and this Hollywoodised take on embodying the split dynamic that popularised Woo’s work would prove influential back at home with Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs in 2002.

The notion of high-concept that the plot of Woo’s Face/Off functions as finds itself prevalent in Infernal Affairs‘ narrative. Two guys: one a cop, one a triad; both working undercover in the environment of the other—surely the perfect elevator pitch. It’s no wonder then that Brad Pitt’s production company picked up the rights in January of 2002 for a Western interpretation of the source material. Scorsese’s The Departed acts a glowing example of the increasingly globalised notion of cinema, where influences are traded mutually, making the distinction between national cinemas only harder and harder to distinguish. Keanu Reeves practically owes his career to John Woo, and the two have never worked together—who would’ve thought?