A longitudinal study of John Woo helicopter hate:
| Film | Helicopters Destroyed | Helicopters Used Unsafely | ||
| Hard Target (1993) | 0 | 1 | ||
| Broken Arrow (1996) | 4* | too many to count | ||
| Face/Off (1997) | 0 | 3 | ||
| Mission Impossible 2 (2000) | 0 | 2 | ||
| Paycheck (2003) | 0 | 1 |
*this movie holds the record for most helicopters destroyed, according to the website Rotary Action, but it is tied with Rambo III, according to Exploding Helicopter.
This little survey was disappointing, frankly. I really thought that John Woo HATED helicopters. But clearly, he got most of it out of his system in Broken Arrow. (In fact, he is a relative latecomer to the directorial sport of helicopter destruction, and he has a long way to catch up to Roland Emmerich . Don’t get me wrong — he’s definitely has some issues with helicopters — but perhaps there is another explanation.)
Maybe he got into some kind of 12-step helicopter hate program, based on this pattern. You know, he never really liked helicopters, and then he got into his serious hate phase, and then, over a course of many years of hard work with his sponsor, tailed off to his pre-addiction levels of helicopter misuse.