4. He Can Do Epic
John Woo returned to his native cinema for the five-hour epic Red Cliff, and with that, he made it abundantly clear that he can do action on not only a confined, frenetic scale, but a gigantic - and surprisingly intelligent, intricate - one, too. Depicting the Battle of Red Cliffs, which brought about the end of the Han Dynasty and helped establish the Three Kingdoms era of Ancient China, Woo's effort is surprisingly restrained, but still visually stunning and action-packed, simply reining in some of the excesses that he is usually known for. However, it is a film that fans of restraint and fans of Woo's other work both enjoy, because it is Woo at his most pragmatic; he works off of a fantastic script, and gets free-rein to work his magic on the plentiful action scenes, which take up a great deal of the latter part of the film. The point? Woo proved that if The Expendables 3 took things on a grander scale - a gigantic firefight over a large area, for instance - that he would be just as capable as if it were two men in a room ducking and diving at one another. Given how vast some of the set-pieces in the series have been so far, this is comforting to know, and a great reason why Woo would make sure we feel how epic it all is.