FBI Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) is on a mission to stop deranged terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage), whose latest ploy involves a hidden bomb set in Los Angeles. Unfortunately for Archer, Troy falls into a coma before he could force a confession from him. But Archer has one last card up his sleeve: an experimental operation that allows him to take on Troy’s face and voice. With this new identity, he infiltrates the prison where Troy’s younger brother and accomplice is held for intel on the bomb’s location. At the same time, Troy wakes up from his coma, undergoes the same procedure to take over Archer’s identity, and finds his way to his nemesis’s family and the upper echelons of the FBI.

Face/Off is John Woo’s Hollywood blockbuster about a police officer and a criminal trading face served as a source of inspiration for Infernal Affairs director Alan Mak, who was captivated by Woo’s exposition on the blurred lines between good and evil.

John Woo (b. 1946, Guangzhou) pioneered the heroic bloodshed film genre in Hong Kong cinema and is considered one of the city’s most influential filmmakers. He started his career at Cathay Organisation, after which he moved to Shaw Brothers, where he later became the assistant director for Chang Cheh. He made his directorial debut The Young Dragons in 1973 for Golden Harvest.

Woo continued to work for Golden Harvest on hits like The Pilferer’s Progress/Money Crazy (1977) and Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979). In 1986, he directed A Better Tomorrow, which began his streak of heroic bloodshed classics such as The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992), all starring frequent collaborator Chow Yun-fat. Woo then made the jump to Hollywood, where features such as Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) established him as a global hitmaker. Since 2008, he has focused on working in mainland China, with his notable work Red Cliff I & II (2008–2009) and the most recent film Manhunt (2017).