The Killer (1989 film)

The Killer () is a 1989 Hong Kong action film directed by John Woo, and produced by Tsui Hark. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, and Sally Yeh. Chow plays Ah Jong, a professional assassin for the Triads who wants to retire, but accidentally damages the eyes of singer Jennie (Yeh) during a shootout and sets out to perform one last hit to pay for her treatment.

After the financial backing from Hark became problematic following the release of Woo's film A Better Tomorrow 2, Woo had to find backing through Chow Yun-fat's and Danny Lee's financing companies. Woo went into filming The Killer with a rough draft whose plot was influenced by the films Le Samouraï, Mean Streets and Narazumono. Woo wanted to make a film about honour, friendship and the relationship of two seemingly opposite people. After finishing filming, Woo referred to The Killer as a tribute to directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Martin Scorsese.

The Killer was not an immediate success in Hong Kong but received critical acclaim internationally with reviewers praising its action scenes and over-the-top style. The film became Woo's steppingstone into Hollywood and has been a strong influence on many directors, including Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Johnnie To. In the years since, The Killer has come to be considered one of the greatest action films ever made. An English-language remake of the film, also directed by Woo, was released in August 2024. The structure of the film follows two men on opposite sides of the law who find a relation to each other in their opposition to a greater evil, Wong Hoi, a Triad boss. Li and Ah Jong's relationship was influenced by the Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad Magazine. Woo recalled "When I was young I was fascinated with the cartoon–I love it very much ... the white bird and the black bird are always against each other, but deep in their heart, they are still friendly, and the idea came from that." Woo uses Ah Jong and Li as a central motif to illustrate moral points. Scenes with this reflective doubling include the hospital sequence with Li and Ah Jong on opposite sides of a hospital hall and in the final battle scene where Li and Ah Jong are in a standoff with Wong. The focus on male friendships in Woo's film have been interpreted as homoerotic. Woo has responded to these statements stating "People will bring their own preconceptions to a movie .... If they see something in The Killer that they consider to be homoerotic then that is their privilege. It's certainly not intentional."

thumb|alt=Profile picture of a pigeon.|Woo's recurring symbol of white [[Columbidae|doves was first used in The Killer]]

Woo is a Christian and instills his films with religious imagery while stating that The Killer is "not a religious film". In the opening of The Killer, Ah Jong is found in a church stating he enjoys the "tranquility". Ah Jong is later found in the church again getting several slugs pulled out of his back showing his intense pain while the altar and cross are shown prominently behind him. The idea was influenced by Martin Scorsese's film Mean Streets, Woo stated the imagery was used to show that "God is welcoming, no matter if it's a good or a bad man, everyone is welcome".

Woo draws on animal symbolism throughout the film. He filled the church with doves and pigeons, employing doves to represent the spirits of the people. This was the first film in which Woo used the dove symbolism that he would later use for a similar effect in Hard Target and Face/Off. The supporting roles were filled out by friends of the actors and director. Chu Kong was a friend of Chow Yun-fat who had entered retirement and returned to acting in The Killer as a favor. During promotion periods for the film, Woo described the film as a tribute to Martin Scorsese and French director Jean-Pierre Melville. Woo also described the influence of a Japanese film, ', about a killer (Ken Takakura) who only kills delinquents. When a mob tricks him into killing an innocent person, he swears revenge but then meets a woman who has tuberculosis and wants to go home. The killer promises the woman that he will take her home after getting his revenge.

The scene where Danny Lee chases a gunman onto a tram was filmed in Causeway Bay and the crew only had three hours to film. Residents thought it was a real gunfight and phoned the police. However, when the police arrived, Danny Lee talked to the superintendent so they could continue filming. The Killer was popular in Korea taking seventh highest place in the year end box office receipts.

The Killer was shown at several film festivals outside Asia including the 1989 Toronto Festival of Festivals and, during the film's United States premiere, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 1990. It was also shown at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States and the Cannes Film Festival in France in 1990. Film producer Terence Chang suggested that The Killers success around the world made several Hong Kong filmmakers jealous: "It created a certain kind of resentment in the Hong Kong film industry. One thing I can say for sure is, the American, European, Japanese, Korean and even the Taiwanese audiences and critics appreciated The Killer a lot more than it was in Hong Kong." The Killer received a wide release in the United Kingdom on 8 October 1993.

Home media

The Killer was released in the United States on VHS by Fox Lorber in November 1992, in a dubbed and subtitled version. In 1993, The Criterion Collection issued a director's cut version of the film on LaserDisc that included audio commentary from Woo and Chang. On 25 June 1996 Fox Lorber released The Killer along with Hard Boiled as a double feature on home video. The Killer was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection on 1 April 1998 in the original Cantonese language track with English subtitles. Bonus features on DVD included the trailer, production notes, and a commentary track. Woo was very happy with the film being included in the Criterion Collection stating, "it was great because it would let people know what [The Killer and Hard Boiled] are about...when I saw that Criterion Collection selected The Killer, I was very happy as The Killer and Bullet in the Head are my two favourites".

On 3 October 2000, Fox Lorber released a DVD of The Killer. In the United Kingdom, The Killer was released on DVD by Hong Kong Legends on 21 October 2002 which included an audio commentary with Bey Logan and interviews with Kenneth Tsang, Sally Yeh and cinematographer Peter Pau.

On 30 March 2010 The Killer was released by the Dragon Dynasty label on two-disc DVD and Blu-ray.

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 45 reviews by critics. Its critical consensus reads, "The Killer is another hard-boiled action flick from John Woo featuring eye-popping balletic violence and philosophical underpinnings."

Stephen Holden of The New York Times referred to the film as "Alternately gripping and laughable" and that "The scenes of gore and destruction are even more spectacular than Hong Kong's fog-shrouded skyline". Variety gave a positive review, describing the film as an "extremely violent and superbly made actioner demonstrates the tight grasp that director John Woo has on the crime meller genre". Kathleen Maher of The Austin Chronicle praised the film stating that it "defies all categorization but demands comparisons, if only to prove that there's never been anything like this before." Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a positive review, describing the film as "like eating popcorn, but it's not just any old brand; it's escape-velocity popcorn, popcorn with a slurp of rocket fuel...[Woo's] ideas overreach themselves with such a virile swagger that they border on comedy. With excess like this you can't help but laugh. This is a rush of a movie".

Later critiques of the film remained positive. The Washington Post stated that "the plot doesn't exactly break new crime-story ground. It's all the Woo flourishes...that elevates The Killer to another level". Empire gave the film five stars and proclaimed that "John Woo's trademark style reached its zenith in The Killer". In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. The Killer was listed at 24th place on this list.

Legacy

The Killer has been recognized as an important and influential film for both Western and Asian filmmakers. Film scholars have noted the similarities between Woo's style and The Killer with the films Nikita (1990) and Léon (1994) directed by French director Luc Besson. Kenneth E. Hall described Léon as having the similar character configuration of a hitman and the person he protects. In Nikita, the main character's crisis of conscience after performing a number of hits is also seen in The Killer. Lucy Mazdon described the style of Nikita as recalling "the work of directors like John Woo. Like Nikita, Woo's films show alienated and often brutal characters and graphic violence". In the United States, directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino developed films that were influenced by The Killer. Rodriguez's films El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995), & Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) contain stylistic homages to The Killer. In writing the script for Jackie Brown, Tarantino added dialog referencing The Killer that were not present in the source novel. Asian-based directors were also influenced by the film. Hong Kong director Johnnie To borrows from The Killers gunfighting style, oppositional character pairing, and parody in his films A Hero Never Dies, Running Out of Time, and Fulltime Killer.

The Killer was also influential on hip hop music. American hip hop artist, and Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon released his critically praised debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995) that sampled numerous portions of dialog from the film. RZA, the producer of the album described the album's themes by stating that "Rae and Ghost was two opposite guys as far as neighborhoods was concerned, I used John Woo's The Killer. [In that movie] you got Chow Yun Fat [playing the role of Ah Jong] and Danny Lee [Inspector Li]. They have to become partners to work shit out."

Accolades

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;" ;

! colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;" | Accolades

! Ceremony

! Category

! Recipient

! Outcome

|rowspan="6"|9th Hong Kong Film Awards

|Best Film

|Best Director

|John Woo

|Best Screenplay

|John Woo

|Best Supporting Actor

|Paul Chu Kong

|Best Film Editing

|Fan Kung Wing

|Best Cinematography

|Wing Hung Wong and Peter Pau

Remake

In 1992, American filmmaker Walter Hill and David Giler wrote a screenplay for Tri-Star Pictures titled The Killer that was dated 6 April 1992. The press release of this remake stated the script was written for actors Richard Gere and Denzel Washington. In June 1992, it was announced Walter Hill and Giler were writing a script titled Hong Kong based on The Killer with Hill directing. The producers had difficulty with the relationship between two main characters in the script as they felt that American audiences would interpret it as a homoerotic one. Producer Terence Chang, who worked with Woo on several productions, suggested to the American producers to have Hong Kong actress Michelle Yeoh play the role of the police officer to resolve any homoerotic reading of the film. A year later, screenwriters Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. were hired by producers Charles Roven and Robert Cavallo to write a screenplay based on The Killer for Tristar, in which they wrote a third draft of the script was that was dated on 23 August 1993 which featured a story of a Caucasian hitman living in Hong Kong. This screenplay moved the focus from the pairing the hit man and the police detective characters to the characters of blinded night club singer and the hit man.

In October 2007, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a remake of The Killer was announced with Korean-American director John H. Lee directing. The remake would take place in Los Angeles's Koreatown, Chinatown, and South Central. Lee named The Killer as one of his favorite films and that he was excited to make his own version of the film. Lee's version was set to be produced by Woo, and star Jung Woo-sung and shot in 3D. Seven Stars Film Studios was slated to finance the production with a screenplay by Josh Campbell. Sarah Li was initially cast to play the role of the blind singer.

Woo commented in 2015 that he would return to Hollywood after filming Manhunt (2017) in order to make an American adaptation of The Killer. Woo said that filming would begin in January 2019. About the decision of flip both the gender and race of the lead, Nyong'o remarked that she "did not see it coming, either", stating that she had received, read and liked the script without having seen the original movie. However, Woo told Deadline in November 2019 that Nyong'o had left the film due to scheduling conflicts as a result of a script rewrite. In May 2022, it was announced that the film will be directed by Woo, produced by Universal and released exclusively on Peacock. In August 2022, Universal announced that Omar Sy would lead the film as the cop character. In March 2023, Nathalie Emmanuel was cast as the lead role. Woo returned to work on The Killer following a multi-month hiatus on shooting the film in Paris shoot due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The film was released on August 23, 2024.

References

Bibliography

External links

The Killer at Hong Kong Cinemagic
The Killer an essay by David Chute at the Criterion Collection