John Woo

Question: I have a question about the beautiful actress Zhang Ziyi, who was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But in Memoirs of a Geisha, she was called Ziyi Zhang. What gives, and what’s her first name?

Answer: Zhang Ziyi’s first name is Ziyi, but in many Asian cultures it’s traditional to give the surname first. Given that for the bulk of human history, the most important thing you could know about a person — in both the East and the West — was who his or her family was, I’m surprised that this order isn’t the norm everywhere. But in the West, the standard name format is surname last (generally a patronymic — the father’s name) and given name first. Miss Zhang appears to have adopted the Western order as part of her bid for international stardom; Americans especially have a problem with “weird” names. That read more

Question: It seems like every other movie I see advertised is based on a TV show, like The Dukes of Hazzard. But what about the other way around? I know there was a series based on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but what other TV series have been based on a movie, and were any of them good?

Answer: There have been a handful of top-notch TV shows based on movies. The flop Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) was revived as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003); Robert Altman's acerbic M*A*S*H* (1970) became the long-running M*A*S*H (1972-1983); Neil Simon read more

Question: What is a spaghetti Western? And how does it differ from a regular Western?

Answer: The short answer is that spaghetti Westerns are Italian productions set in the American West. The longer answer involves a confluence of historical, economic and cultural forces. The popular reimagining of the American West began as the West was still being won, with pulp novels, Wild West shows and touring theater productions. Movies were the next logical step in the process, and their formative years followed so closely on the heels of the conquest of the frontier that real-life legend Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) lived long enough to act as an advisor on early Westerns. American Westerns ranged from simple adventure fables aimed at children to more psychologically and socioeconomically sophisticated stories. But by the early '60s, after more than 40 years of movies and TV shows, American Westerns were running out of steam. European read more