John Woo vs. Quentin Tarantino: Who is the better action director?

John Woo: The legendary Hong Kong director known for revolutionizing Chinese action cinema (and he does it without kung-fu!). Just as Goodfellas and The Godfather brought the world into the world of the Mafia, John Woo brought audiences deep into the Hong Kong criminal underground. Chow Yun-Fat is his poster boy.

Main masterwork:


Quentin Tarantino: Masterful action director known for brilliant twists, dialogue, heavy gore, violence, and profanity. Many of his tropes are influenced by John Woo but all in all his film-making style is raw and unique. Samuel L. Jackson is his poster boy.

Main masterwork:

In my opinion, Woo has the better action sequences but Tarantino has the better script/screenplay. Thus the appeal doesn't always come from the action itself. Woo is still the better director in terms of action (for me, at least).

Tarantino by far

__________________
Letterboxd

John Woo by a long shot.

I don't think Tarantino makes garbage like Mission Impossible 2.

__________________
You talkin' to me?

Tarantino is not an action director...like at all. It's obviously John Woo (especially during his Hong Kong days) as an action director. Overall i'm sure more would pick Tarantino but as an action director it's not debatable.

His American films are pretty terrible, his Hong Kong films are better as action films than Kill Bill which is the only action films Tarantino has made.

Again taking everything into account i'm sure loads think Kill Bill is better than any of his films, but action-wise it's not close at all.

Taratino essentially is not an action director

I feel this, too. That's why I can't vote. It's hard to explain, since it's not as if Tarantino doesn't do action in his films. He does, and I don't know if it was just me that really dug the second half of Death Proof (nah, I know whenever anyone asks that question, it's never just them), but some of those shots were beautiful.

John Woo's action is also really beautiful to watch, but I feel Woo is a true, proper action director. For me, it's a little bit like trying to compare a music subgenre to its daddy.

I will argue here that Tarantino IS an action director. Kill Bill (1&2) are martial arts action films. Inglourious Basterds is a war action film. Django Unchained is a western action film.
All of his other films feature gratuitous action and violence, even if they are not actually action films.

The difference is that, in a Tarantino flick, the action is a result of the plot, as opposed to a John Woo movie where the plot is a result of the action. The plot only serves to hold all the action together.

This is true. I may need to review my stance on voting.

Time to choose. Difficult.

1. John Woo, HK
2. Quentin Tarantino
3. John Woo, USA

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

You might as well ask who's the better suspense director, Tarantino or Hitchcock.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

The key point is director, because if we include writing True Romance, and Natural Born Killers puts him over the top.

I'd go with Woo. I don't really consider Tarantino an action director. Sure there are great action sequences in some of his films (Kill Bill, Django) but some of his best films (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Hateful Eight) aren't really considered action films at all.

You both need to take a wider look at his filmography.

Django Unchained, Kill Bill 1, Kill Bill 2, and Inglourious Basterds are all action films. If you include Grindhouse and Death Proof, it's clear that the majority of his films are action
films.

Even his non-action movies still feature gratuitous action. You can name any film he's made and it is at least peppered with some sort of ultra-violent action. The films named above are made up of multiple major action sequences.

What are his hallmarks? Let me see: Profanity, gore, blood, and violence.

Tarantino is CLEARLY an action director.

I never said he wasn't capable of directing action, just that it's a matter of quantity instead of quality. The reason I invited a comparison to Hitchcock was to underline that, while Tarantino was capable of making suspenseful sequences, those sequences don't necessarily define his films' greatness like they do with "master of suspense" Hitchcock making entire films that are driven by suspense. The same goes for Woo and action - Tarantino can do good action, but he's not as much of an action director as Woo.

Consider how much you're trying to stretch the definition of what counts as "action" in order to make Tarantino seem like a worthy competitor, including lumping in any acts of violence under "action". Out of eight (nine if you want to split the Bills) films, most of them do have very little action - including Inglourious Basterds, where most of the action is over in a flash (such as the bar scene taking 10+ minutes of suspense and then having it explode into a shootout that's over in about thirty seconds). I wouldn't even count Death Proof or Kill Bill Vol. 2 or Django as action just because they have one big action sequence each. If anything, I'd agree with this article's assessment that Kill Bill Vol. 1 really is the only "true" action movie he's ever done and it goes into detail as to why it counts where the others don't.

I'm well aware of his filmography, I've seen all of them. Yes the Kill Bills and Django and a couple others could be considered action films but his best work is more considered crime/drama, while Woo's best work is pure action.

john woo ofc, he gave us face off, broken arrow and others..