Many people don’t care John Woo’St Mission: Impossible II, but dammit… I loved it! I loved Woo’s directing and storytelling style and he crafted a unique and stylish action spy thriller with M:I II!
I still remember first watching that opening shot in theaters with my friends as we watched Tom Cruise climbing a cliff face! I knew very little about that kind of stuff when I was younger, so watching him was such a cool and impressive experience. I actually credit it for the love of climbing and exploring that I now have! I don’t do anything that crazy, but I always do adventurous things with the same spirit!
Anyway, Tom Cruise did his own stunts in that movie and he really wanted to climb those cliffs! Woo would have liked to play it a little safe, but Cruise was a producer on the film and he pulled the strings, and he got to do whatever he wanted. Woo was mad at Cruise because he wanted to do it, and that terrified him, but they pulled it off and Tom Cruise made it through alive to survive another day. Wook shared in a past interview with EW:
“I was really mad because he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn’t. […] I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even look at the monitor when we shot it.”
During the first round of stunt shooting, the director didn’t get the shots he was looking for, especially for one of the most harrowing shots. The camera operators could not frame and focus each shot to Woo’s liking and this frustrated him. He said:
“We had five cameras on the cliff, including a helicopter camera, a camera on a crane and cameramen hanging from lifelines, but we were having trouble focusing so we had to do it again and again. But Tom would say, ‘I’m fine. , John, don’t worry, I want to do it one more time.
This scared the shit out of Woo because anything could go wrong while trying to shoot this sequence multiple times. Cruise was having a blast, though! In another interview with UK Climbing Magazine, one of the camera operators, Earl Wigginstalked about how they did the climbing shots in the film.
“During the shoot, Ron would escort Tom into position and then walk away for each take. We used winches to get Tom in and out of position. The rigging had cantilevered trellises on the edge to direct the ropes. the sliding off the cliff: his main stunt double, Keith Campbell, did that stunt.Tom was on the cliff for five days filming and never complained, which is rare for a big star.
As for the danger factor of filming the scene, the cliff that Cruise was actually scaling was about 600 feet from the nearest surface and about 2,000 feet from the river below. It’s pretty crazy, but awesome. Speaking about trying to realize Woo’s vision, Wiggins added:
“The climb was choreographed by the film’s stunt coordinator, Brian Smrz, who is hands down the best in the business. However, the choreography included several elements that John Woo had deemed essential. The crucifix position is, I’m told , in every John Woo film. I can’t say if that’s actually true, but it was important to John.”
Cruise kept doing even crazier stunts, but it was stunt work like this Mission: Impossible II which prepared him for what he is doing now.
Via: /Movies
by Joey Paur
Source: Geek Tyrant
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
