Venice film festival to honour John Woo

(AFP/SAM YEH)

The action movie director John Woo will receive a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at next year's Venice Film Festival, the organisers said Monday.

Announcing the award, the Venice committee said Woo's "revolutionary conception of staging and editing (had) renewed action movies to the core."

Woo, 53, was born in southern China and raised in Hong Kong, where he made his name as a director before moving to work in Hollywood and directing a number of action hits, including "Face/Off" with John Travolta, and "Mission: Impossible 2" with Tom Cruise.