WATCH THE TRAILER HERE
***
“John Woo sure can shoot an action scene” said a studio suit.
“Yea, and Michelangelo can paint a FUCKING ceiling.” said Quentin Tarantino
***
There are a lot of things you can call John Woo’s The Killer: Melodramatic, Overblown and Cliché are just a few of the naughty words that can be shot about the room. I won’t disagree with any of them. The one thing I will argue is that none of those words make The Killer a bad film. In fact, I’ll be the first to sing its praises and boldly paint on a 50 foot wall that it’s as out-and-out masterpiece of modern cinema. “Is he nuts?” the peanut gallery demands “He just critiqued it words that are nothing but negative!” Yup, they are, but only if you’re critiquing the film based on strict guidelines of what constitutes “Acceptable Cinema”. In every artistic medium, the goal at the end of the day is to evoke emotions in the audience: It could be laughter, it could be exhilaration or it could be terror. The bad films are the ones that leave you lukewarm and undetached. The classics are the ones that make the hair on your arms stand up to attention and force a tingle to roll down your spine.
This is one of those films.
Chow-Yun Fat stars as Jeff, a killer with a conscience. During one of his routine hits he accidentally blinds a singer. Jeff is racked with incredible guilt, so he begins takes care of her, falls in love and promises to restore her sight. . Everything goes to hell when Jeff is betrayed and it all turns into a race to escape the mob and the cops (Led by Danny Lee, who believes that there’s more to Jeff then meets the eye). It all ends in a blistering hail of bullets, blood and explosions that comes together like nothing you’ve seen before.
Easily John Woo’s most assured and all around solid piece of filmmaking The Killer succeeds because it never backs down. Its characters are larger than life. The music is manipulative and grand. The gunfights are impossibly acrobatic and covered in an absurd number of bullet-holes. None of that is a knock against the film. The Killer is a classic because it does everything so perfectly within its own context. The acting (which is dubbed, as was all Hong Kong films of the era) is aces from everyone involved, especially Chow Yun Fat putting in a powerhouse performance as the killer who mourns the loss of honor in the world. There’s tons of layers here (Duality, Friendship and that justice is a tragedy waiting to happen) but it easily gets forgotten in the action on display. I can’t hype this stuff enough. The editing, the geography of the scene and the creativity on display in Woo’s work will never be topped. He may have shot better gunfights before (Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow II) but they never had the punch that The Killer packs.
It’s a classic. See it. Don’t make me come over there.
***
“John Woo sure can shoot an action scene” said a studio suit.
“Yea, and Michelangelo can paint a FUCKING ceiling.” said Quentin Tarantino
***
There are a lot of things you can call John Woo’s The Killer: Melodramatic, Overblown and Cliché are just a few of the naughty words that can be shot about the room. I won’t disagree with any of them. The one thing I will argue is that none of those words make The Killer a bad film. In fact, I’ll be the first to sing its praises and boldly paint on a 50 foot wall that it’s as out-and-out masterpiece of modern cinema. “Is he nuts?” the peanut gallery demands “He just critiqued it words that are nothing but negative!” Yup, they are, but only if you’re critiquing the film based on strict guidelines of what constitutes “Acceptable Cinema”. In every artistic medium, the goal at the end of the day is to evoke emotions in the audience: It could be laughter, it could be exhilaration or it could be terror. The bad films are the ones that leave you lukewarm and undetached. The classics are the ones that make the hair on your arms stand up to attention and force a tingle to roll down your spine.
This is one of those films.
Chow-Yun Fat stars as Jeff, a killer with a conscience. During one of his routine hits he accidentally blinds a singer. Jeff is racked with incredible guilt, so he begins takes care of her, falls in love and promises to restore her sight. . Everything goes to hell when Jeff is betrayed and it all turns into a race to escape the mob and the cops (Led by Danny Lee, who believes that there’s more to Jeff then meets the eye). It all ends in a blistering hail of bullets, blood and explosions that comes together like nothing you’ve seen before.
Easily John Woo’s most assured and all around solid piece of filmmaking The Killer succeeds because it never backs down. Its characters are larger than life. The music is manipulative and grand. The gunfights are impossibly acrobatic and covered in an absurd number of bullet-holes. None of that is a knock against the film. The Killer is a classic because it does everything so perfectly within its own context. The acting (which is dubbed, as was all Hong Kong films of the era) is aces from everyone involved, especially Chow Yun Fat putting in a powerhouse performance as the killer who mourns the loss of honor in the world. There’s tons of layers here (Duality, Friendship and that justice is a tragedy waiting to happen) but it easily gets forgotten in the action on display. I can’t hype this stuff enough. The editing, the geography of the scene and the creativity on display in Woo’s work will never be topped. He may have shot better gunfights before (Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow II) but they never had the punch that The Killer packs.
It’s a classic. See it. Don’t make me come over there.
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