Dead Knot

Dead Knot is an early experimental collaboration between Sek Kei and a young John Woo, made during his college cine-club years, long before he emerged as a defining figure of Hong Kong commercial cinema. Appearing on screen himself, Woo stages a body under strain—bound, restricted, and charged with sexual and psychological tension—through gestures shaped by American underground and avant-garde films first encountered through film magazines and later viewed via screenings the cine-club asked the USIS to arrange in the 1960s. The film functions both as an early self-portrait and as evidence of how the experimental movement nurtured a generation of filmmakers who would later enter the mainstream and transform Hong Kong cinema.