Santa Claus won’t be the only mythical figure sliding down chimneys this holiday season! John Woo is getting in on the home invasion action now that Lionsgate is bringing Silent Night to PVOD on December 19. Please buy extra milk and cookies this year. I hear Woo likes Macaroons and Snickerdoodles. While that’s probably inaccurate, he strikes me as a man of taste. It’s been 20 years since Woo’s last American movie, so this is a big deal.
“From legendary director John Woo and the producer of John Wick comes the gritty revenge tale of a tormented father (Joel Kinnaman) who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve,” reads the official synopsis. “While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, Kinnaman makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death. Full of Woo’s signature style, Silent Night redefines the action genre with visceral thrill-a-minute storytelling.”
John Woo directs Silent Night from a script by Robert Archer Lynn. Scott Mescudi (The Harder They Fall, Need for Speed, Don’t Look Up), Harold Torres (Memory, Run Coyote Run, Sonora), and Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace, A Most Violent Year, The Bridge) star as primary cast members alongside Kinnaman.
John Woo’s Silent Night, a dialogue-free action movie, still plays in theaters, with the upcoming PVOD release allowing audiences to avoid theater crowds before going home for the holidays. Producer Erica Lee told Collider earlier this year that her reaction to the script was, “This is either going to be a genius move or a disaster, there’s no in between.” I’ve got faith in John Woo. The director commented on the project while speaking with Vulture this summer.
“Very interesting movie,” Woo said. “The whole movie is without dialogue. It allowed me to use visuals to tell the story, to tell how the character feels. We are using music instead of language. And the movie is all about sight and sound. The budget was a little tight, and the schedule was tight, but it made me change my working style. Usually, for a big movie, a studio movie, we shoot a lot of coverage, then leave it to the cutting room. But in this movie, I tried to combine things without doing any coverage shots. I had to force myself to use a new kind of technique. Some scenes were about two or three pages, but I did it all in one shot.”
Will you watch John Woo’s Silent Night in theaters or on PVOD? What are some of your go-to action films set around the holidays? Violent Night? Die Hard? Jingle All the Way? Alright, maybe that last one’s a stretch, but tell me you don’t get a rush when Booster gets clocked in his stupid, fuzzy, pink face.
Silent Night arrives on PVPD on December 20. Ho ho ho!