Famed action director brings a fresh WWII story to the big screen

World War II is the most written-about and over-filmed conflict in history, but at least one of its episodes has remained obscure: the contribution of the Navajo "code talkers" who used their native language to confound the Japanese in the later battles of the Pacific War.

This Friday, however, that oversight will finally be corrected with the release of "Windtalkers," an epic war movie about the unique Navajo involvement in the 1944 Battle of Saipan, as staged by famed Hong Kong-turned-Hollywood action director John Woo.

In Seattle recently to promote the film, Woo admitted that, even though he was a WWII history buff, he had never even heard of the Navajo code talkers before the writers pitched the story to him -- and when they did, he was so moved he burst into tears.

A small man with a seductive air of serenity, he said, "It's not easy to say anything new about this particular war. But the story (about the bond of brotherhood that develops between a Navajo and his Marine 'protector') seemed fresh, and right up my alley."

Even so, he admits he's "nervous" about the film. At $100 million-plus, it's MGM's most expensive film ever, and amounts to a make-or-break situation for the troubled studio. And it's appearing as the WWII film cycle seems to be waning, after the recent flop of "Hart's War."

Finished before 9/11, the film's release has been delayed several times. "It was supposed to open last November, but we were afraid to come out just after the attack. We didn't think people would be in the mood for a war movie. And I always thought it should be a summer film."

The publicity claims the filming (in Hawaii) was more complicated than the actual Battle of Saipan, but Woo only says it was "my most complex undertaking, involving the movements of hundreds of soldiers with timed explosions. Yet we didn't have a single casualty."

Did he feel the same kind of pressure that compelled last year's "Pearl Harbor" to downplay Japanese brutality? "Not really. But we do have scenes that establish the Japanese civilians as (victims), and the brutality is divided between both sides."

And he did omit the most infamous incident of the Saipan fighting: the suicide leaps of hundreds of fearful Japanese families from the "Banzai Cliff." "That part of the Saipan story is so horrible I was afraid it might take the movie in a whole different direction."

Born in China in 1946, Woo's family moved to Hong Kong after the Communist Revolution, and he grew up in a tough section of Kowloon. He entered the film industry right out of Matteo Ricci College and directed his first film for the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1969.

That same year, he moved over to Golden Harvest and spent the next two decades directing gangster and martial-arts films for the studio, including many of the classics of the Colony's Golden Age of Filmmaking: "A Better Tomorrow," "The Killer" and "A Bullet in the Head."

In the process, he developed an instantly identifiable action style that gained him a cult of fans, and made his films easy to parody. "I've tried to downplay those (stylistic) effects in 'Windtalkers,'" he said with a blush. "I think people are tired of them."

At the same time, he also generated a legendary loyalty in his co-workers. Christian Slater, a veteran of two Woo films, told me: "John's this wonderful, mysterious man. I've never seen him lose his temper, or utter a harsh word. Working with him is like a Zen experience."

In 1992, he came to Hollywood to make "Hard Target," and then formed his own company and stayed in the States to turn out a string of increasingly bigger-budget thrillers: "Broken Arrow," "Face/Off," and the Tom Cruise megahit, "Mission: Impossible 2."

He became a U.S. citizen two years ago and is here to stay. "The Hong Kong industry still manages a hit now and then, but its best days are gone, and I don't see how it will ever recover. I could never go back: The truth is I now feel very American."

Indeed, his next film will be "a love story set just before the Alamo." And he's also developing another epic western that deals with Irish and Chinese building the transcontinental railroad. "I love westerns," he said. "John Ford, Howard Hawks -- that's what I grew up on."