How sad is this?

Fresh and Exciting

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The Killer (1989) is in my opinion John Woo's masterpiece and one of the best classic action films from Hong Kong I have ever seen. It is one of my personal favorite John Woo action movies. This film has everything, it has even a sad ending, which neither one action movie has that kind of ending. Chow Yun-Fat gave us one of his best performances ever, Danny Lee was outstanding as Hong Kong Police officer. The action, the gore, the violence, the gun play everything is in this movie. The final showdown in the church was one the best action scenes ever made in a film. It is my fifth favorite John Woo film! The first four will be Hard Target (1993), Hard Boiled (1992), Broken Arrow (1996) and Paycheck (2003) this is the fifth John Woo favorite action film of mine that I love to death. Chow Yun-Fat's character Ah Jong was well written and well done, but it isn't close as is his character Insp. 'Tequila' Yuen from Hard Boiled. This is was the first film with John Woo as I have saw when I was 10. years old, I think I was 12 or 13 when I first time saw Hard Boiled, but still I had no Idea both of the movies are from same director with the same actor. I love this movie to death and it is one of my favorite action movies.Plot: Chow Yun-Fat stars as an expert assassin who finds himself conflicted with his work in his one last hit in hopes of using his earnings to restore vision to a singer he accidentally blinded, only to be double-crossed by his boss. Danny Lee co-stars as the Hong Kong Police Force inspector determined to catch the assassin and take down the organization that employs him. These two guys from the opposite worlds end up becoming friends and working together to bring down their bigger enemy.The Killer gained numerous international accolades for Woo and its influence can be seen in countless action films in the following decades including in the movies directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The action is, as always with a John Woo movie, spectacular but the characters are well developed and the story is very engaging. It's not quite as big in scale as Hard Boiled but it's still very well paced with plenty of great action. What is it about Hit men in movies that they are always so damn cool? Like Hard Boiled, the music is pretty cheap and forgettable sounding but it doesn't detract from the action. We get the doves, the slow-mo and the religious imagery aplenty in this film and as with Hard Boiled there is little to find fault with.I still love Hard Boiled better than The Killer because Hard Boiled has happy ending and The Killer has not a happy ending, but still I love this movie and it is an action Classic and John Woo directing this movie did the best job ever as been the director and a writer the same time. This man John Woo is outstanding and the actors are just amazing, the characters are well written and the chemistry between Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee is well written and are making a great due as the opposite team. You know Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang and Walter Hill should all take a school of action movies from John Woo's The Killer, because those three American guys sucked at making an action film in 2012 Bullet to the Head failed and it sucked ass. Sylvester Stallone and Sung Kang as a hired hit-man and a police detective had no written chemistry working together and they both suck! Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee are the real team as hired professional hit-man and a Hong Kong police officer. Those two guys are the real team, I will rather watch this movie than Walter Hill's Bullet to the Head! This movie it is a perfect 10, it takes the vision of one of the most creative intelligent action directors in HK cinema eve! The film is filled the most explosive showdowns in cinematic history. It is loaded with some with the most outrageously choreographed action sequences ever committed to film and an absolute hailstorm of bullets. It is fast paced, better more choreographed stylized action. The Killer is a perfect action film as one could ask for.Overall: I think The Killer is on par with Hard Boiled but there's maybe a little more focus on the story than action....but the action in that delivers too. A pair with Hard Boiled is a it's truly bad ass. My favorite action movie with Hard Target and Hard Boiled! I love them to death it get's a perfect 10!

At times John Woo's The Killer has segments that seem directly lifted from those Chinese karaoke videos that my parents and their friends used to crowd around. They share the same dreamlike qualities - random flutterings of doves meant to be symbolically relevant, a hazy background that seems perfect for the haunting vibraphone score, slow motion for the most emotionally tense moments and so on. It is problematic because throughout the film Woo piles on these elements, combined with the shoot-outs upon shoot-outs that seem to last an eternity, and it is difficult to know whether to laugh or not. When Detective Li Ying storms up towards Ah Jong's hideout in fury after the death of his partner, he cocks his gun and right before climbing over the wall, does a forward roll for seemingly no reason. Later, two of the white suited goons of Frank's hire execute a similar manoeuvre as they drive up to assault the house. There are good characters, and there are terrible characters. The latter is firstly Frank, who Woo seems to think can be made menacing merely by suiting him up and placing Ray Bans on his head. This does not make for the deadly assassin that he is stated to be. It is funnier yet when his apparently deadly methods include sending endless hordes of gunmen at the target and in reality just providing fodder for yet another shoot-out. There is also the object of Ah Jong's desire, Jennie, who falls in love with him pretty easily. Their initial encounters evoke a rather neo-noir aesthetic with the grimy neon signs of the karaoke bar, and the glistening asphalt in the back alley. Magical and slightly surreal, but her character itself is bland, displaying no distinct qualities apart from being the voice of innocence which shouts out (okay well she's quite meek really) plot points and warnings. Why is the room so dark, she inquires, right before the dark dramatic shoot-out which will end with her lover's death. There is one moment of saving grace, where she fires a gun then immediately collapses into tears at what she thinks she has done, which highlights exactly how the average civilian might react to such events. Both Ah Jong and Li Ying are portrayed quite well, and manage to create real emotion from the rather oddly paced script. You can almost believe the tears of rage at the end as Li Ying succumbs to his anger and murders the triad boss, renouncing his former morals. Maybe they aren't so different after all. The best character however has to be Fung Sei, Ah Jong's close friend who encounters and struggles with several dilemmas involving friendship, honour and betrayal. Here is a man who has long given up the assassin life but who still has vestiges of pride and commitment to long term friendship left in him. Woo builds up his heroic escape, and then makes him misfire literally by miscounting the number of bullets in his gun, a great moment of characterisation using a dialogue callback.But it still remains impossibly hard to root for these characters when Woo seems to prefer the endless shoot-outs and their dramatic role. They are used to build character and resilience, but very early on they blur and become all too repetitive, and trivial, because although our main characters take hits, they seem to be fine moments later. The first infiltration by Ah Jong is quite well choreographed and edited, but after that point The Killer seems to descend into repeated massacres. I can acknowledge the gun-fu influence on similar Hollywood type action scenes (The Matrix, Tarantino, Rodriguez), but even so The Killer's action sequences are horribly disjointed and chaotic. Hordes of nameless and faceless goons seem to stumble and teleport into the frame, their lifeless bodies spasming onto the ground before we are even aware of what has occurred. Do not fret however, for the most gory and vital bits always seem to be emphasised via this self-important slow motion. This does not build tension, but sentimentality. Sometimes, like when the Triad boss shoots Ah Jong from outside the church and around the door, the action will not make logical sense. Other times, the action is put on pause altogether for moments of melodrama; after Fung Sei is shot within an inch of his life, the goons suddenly stop storming the church to allow our dear friends to say goodbye. Woo seems to lean onto these elongated action sequences as if they are the most important moments for the main characters. After the trio escape from yet another ambush, there is a chance to reflect or simply bask in the reluctant alliance they have been forcibly pushed into. But Woo cuts to that dramatic confrontation where they both refuse to kill each other, and then cuts again rapidly to them tending to each others wounds. Where is the meat? My favourite little tidbit is when Li Ying infiltrates Ah Jong's apartment, sits in his chair and slides over to the doorway, imitating the same shooting action as Ah Jong when forced to defend his home. A bit of subtlety in visualising how they are not so different from each other, both armed guns shaped by larger, uncontrollable forces. It's all very sad of course, but Woo cannot wrap it up. The end of the film has perhaps the most karaoke-like scene of them all, a wistful Chow Yun Fat solemnly playing the harmonica beside the window. Surely we are not meant to take this seriously?

"One vicious hit-man. One fierce cop. Ten thousand bullets."- from a promotional ad for THE KILLER. There are two exaggerations in that teaser slogan for THE KILLER. The hit-man played by Chow Yun Fat is actually a suave, rather sentimental anti-hero who is looking to bail out of his deadly-force-for-hire profession. Yes, he's a murderer. But he doesn't enjoy his work. As for the "fierce cop", Danny Lee portrays him as more of a dogged, enthusiastic peace officer than as an maniacal enforcer of the law. But what about those ten thousand bullets? I'll put it to you this way: at quite a few points in the film you may find yourself sitting there with your mouth agape and your eyes bulging from their sockets. Keep the remote handy also for you may be doing extensive replaying of scenes. The action sequences are mind-boggling in the cleverness of their staging and intensity of their execution. John Woo's best film carries his signature motif of entangling alliances between good guy/bad guy/evil guy(s), spinning around in a hypertensive milieu of criminality where exhaustive foot chases, unbelievable physical dexterity, and claustrophobic showdowns are the norm. And all of this unfolds beneath a firestorm of discharged ammunition. What has always set Woo's Hong Kong films apart are the exquisitely balletic movements of his actor/characters while under semi-automatic duress (surpassing Peckinpah's earlier but static slo-mo style by leaps and bounds). Working in Hollywood, Woo has been hard pressed to live up to his earlier films. HARD TARGET, BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, et al. are cartoonish popcorn flicks missing the all important complexity and richness of character and story of the Hong Kong films. Hollywood sunders another original talent. But watch THE KILLER, get involved in the story, and look out for those flying bullets. One day, hopefully, Woo will recapture his earlier form.

After having been told by a friend for months about film director John Woo and a movie sub-genre called Heroic Bloodshed,I decided that due to a poll being held on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best titles of 1989,that I would finally discover how heroic the bloodshed could really be.The plot:Sitting in a church,a Triad hit-man called Ah Jong is given details by a fellow Triad, (and close friend) called Fung Sei over an assassination that he has been ordered to do,the target of which is going to be visiting a night club later that night.Entering the club,Ah finds himself feeling an unexpectedly strong connection with the vocal delivery of the singer at the club,called Jennie.Getting the sudden urge to keep Jennie safe,Jong carries out the assassination on the target,and then pushes Jennie on the ground,so that she is out of harms way.Sadly Ah's plan is ruined when one of the target's bodyguards begins shooting at him,which leads to Jong firing a shot which accidentally scratches Jennie's eyes,and causes serious damage to her sight.6 Months later:Finding the image of Jennie losing her sight to be an image that's unable to leave his mind,Ah starts visiting the club and sitting in the back,so that he can hear the hauntingly beautiful voice of Jennie, (who along with not being able to spot Jong due to her blindness,has also been told by DR's that there is a long waiting list for the operation that save her sight)perform.Walking back from the club one night,Ah suddenly spots 2 thugs attempting to attack Jennie.Beating them up into a bloody pulp,Jong tells Jennie that he will walk her the rest of the way home.Being invited in to the flat by Jennie,thanks to saving her from being attacked by the thugs,Jong is sicken to see the full extent that his mistake has had on Jennie's life.Talking to Jennie,Ah finds out that whilst there is a long waiting list for her operation in Hong Kong,that there is a much shorter waiting list for the same operation in other countries.Desperate to make up for his fatal mistake,Jong tells Fung that he is going to do 'one last job' for a high price,which will allow him to use the cash to send Jennie abroad for her operation.Expecting this killing to be his final task,Ah Jong soon discovers to his horror that the killer may be about to become,the killed.View on the film:Opening with a blistering assassination,writer/director John Woo reveals a startling eye for stylisation,with Woo keeping away from delivery the bloodshed action in short,sharp shots by slowing every bullet shot down to a tenth of its actually speed,which along with showing to the viewer the full impact that each shoot-out has on the character's,also allows Woo to give the action (which Woo claims was not storyboarded,but in fact made up on the day of filming!)an unexpected poetic quality,as each of Ah Long's target's fall down in a ballet like manner.Along with slowing the pace of the action down,Woo also uses tightly coiled close up's to reveal the fear and adrenaline rush that the violence feeds into the character's.Making sure to keep away from making the non-violent moments in the title 'filler',Woo displays a real skill in showing both sides of Ah Jongs conflicting personality,with Woo making a brightly lit,dove filled, (a motif that would become one of the director's trademarks) church Jong's unofficial home,as Woo shows Long to find a sense of peace and healing in the building,which inadvertently leads to Long experiencing a harsh twist of fate,as the shadow of the high church covers him.Despite the post-production period of the title being a complete nightmare thanks to John Woo and producer Hark Tsui, (who along with wanting to completely change the plot so that Ah Long would become a supporting character,decided to celebrate the movies hit opening weekend,by allegedly chucking his furniture out of the office window!) never being able to get on,Woo builds a strikingly intense atmosphere by combining the grim atmosphere of the Film Noir and Italian Crime genres,with a burning passion that gives the Heroic Bloodshed genre a distinctive soulful side.Showing Ah Jongs relationship with Jennie to be something that desperately makes him want to leave their dark world behind,Woo show's Ah Jongs 'Heroic' Bloodsheeding morals to be ones that are getting burnt up from the world he inhabits,thanks to Woo filling his primary colour- draining world with gangsters,thugs and corrupt politicians who have made a decaying city where any sense of morals are to be shot dead.Taking on the title role,Chow Yun-Fat gives an excellent performance as Ah Jong,with Yun-Fat avoiding the easy option of making Jong a heartless thug,by showing the pain that Jong experience's from the effects that his 'job' has on his few friends and Jennie,whose singing haunts Jong to remember what he almost destroyed.Giving the movie a shot of glamour,real life Pop star Sally Yeh gives an excellent performance as Jennie,with Yeh giving the title some strong operatic vibes from the pain that Jong accidentally inflicts on her,to showing Jennie developing a warming heart towards Jong.Joining Yun-Fat and Yeh,Danny Lee gives a brilliant performance as Insp.Li Ying,as Lee show Ying struggling with the very real idea that he might be the other side of the coin to Jong's assassin,whilst Kong Chu gives an amazing performance as the warn down gangster Wong Hoi,who discovers,that despite wanting to leave this life behind,that in this city,killing is everybody's business,and that business is good.