John Woo Yu-Sen (born May 1, 1946) is an internationally an critically acclaimed Chinese film director and producer. Woo is widely known for his stylised movies which are renowned for their balletic action sequences, Mexican stand-offs, and use of slow-motion. He directed the notable Hong Kong action films, A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, and The Killer. His English-language movies include Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible 2. As a young boy, Woo wanted to be a Christian minister; he later found a passion for movies influenced by European film, the French New Wave and Jean-Pierre Melville. Woo has said he was shy and had difficulty speaking, but found making movies a way to explore his feelings and thinking and would "use movie as a language". Woo cites his three favourite films as Lawrence of Arabia, Seven Samurai and Melville's Le Samouraï. He also created the comic series 7 Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. Woo was described by Dave Kehr in The Observer in 2002 as "arguably the most influential director making movies today".