The Killer (1989)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Better Late Then Never

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I wanted to see a film at the height of Le Samouraï (1967), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I was hoping to have the atmosphere and feelings of the masterpiece with Alain Delon. And this The Killer by John Woo seemed very promising at first. But in fact, after the first 5 minutes, the film becomes just an endless series of shootings, explosions and stunts. Many are even hilarious if not ridiculous. All guns have an endless number of bullets, pull indefinitely, without changing chargers. Among shootings and leaps forward, jumps back, tumbles and falls from height, many more gasps, moaning, sighs and groaning of the blind heroine or of those mobsters who are shot. Each one, many many times. Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee are both two nice, beautiful guys, with a lot of charisma and personality. But their stature and beautiful smile does not save the film from the mediocrity that makes me think of Bollywood melodramas type. The melancholic music, actually, the same few notes repeated throughout the film, also contribute to that. Some consider it a masterpiece and a cult film. I do not. The classics with James Cagney, Paul Muni, Lee Marvin or Jack Palance, are much better. Because they look more realistic!

A great Hong Kong action movie which I would consider to be John Woo's near best – unlike HARD-BOILED it also has a story and strong characters along with tons of his famous gun-fu action. Forget Woo's later attempts at a career in Hollywood (a path which yielded some great movies, but none as intense as this), THE KILLER shows him at his best, simultaneously offering us a career-best Chow Yun-Fat as an all-too-human hit-man who suffers a crisis of conscience after accidentally blinding a nightclub singer during a hit. The plot is simple but layered in characterisation and emotion; Woo contrasts the endless violence with touching scenes of romance and heartfelt feeling. The entire cast put in wonderful performances, whether it be Sally Yeh as the fragile blind girl or Danny Lee as the unorthodox cop whose life parallels Yun-Fat's. Add in a brew of nasty over-the-top villains and you have the elements which make up a great film.Obviously the main reason for male viewers to watch this film is the much-hyped action choreography; let me say simply that it doesn't disappoint. The otherwise fairly slow plot is punctuated by tons of hard-hitting shoot-outs, usually involving Yun-Fat battling against dozens of hired killers and assassins out to get him. Stunts, violence, and explosions combine to make a truly exciting viewing experience which just gets better as it goes on. Once the gang of white tracksuit-wearing bad guys show up towards the end of the film, Woo lets rip with some incredible set-pieces in which the violent shoot-outs go on forever; death has never been painted as artistically as this before. Little touches emphasise the violence, like the church setting of the finale or Yun-Fat's white suit which gradually gets drenched in blood. Woo reminds us of the futility of violence with a bleak and tragic ending which actually leaves you a little shell-shocked. For me, THE KILLER is close to the best on-screen realisation of Woo's career, a re-watchable masterpiece of action and drama, cleverly intertwined and always edge-of-your-seat material. Only HARD-BOILED beats it thanks to THAT hospital set-piece.

Probably one of the best solo films you should watch if you're interested in finding out what John Woo is all about. The Killer is one of the best known and most highly regarded Hong Kong action films and helped to put John Woo on the map, as well as working as an inspiration for film makers such as Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. And you can definitely see how they have drawn influences from its stylistic carnage, cool under pressure characters and just from its general modern day as inhabited by people larger than life setting.The story goes that Ah Jong (once again played by Chow Yun-fat) is an assassin, who during his supposed last job permanently injures a beautiful singer (Sally Yeh), rendering her almost completely blind. Wrecked by guilt, he appoints himself her protector, but things get complicated when his former boss wants him permanently dealt with and he also has to do one more job to get enough money to get her eyes fixed.The story is not overly complicated, but it has enough substance that we get a few good character scenes and dialogues from it. But what really makes this film worth watching is its action scenes. John Woo is a fantastic action director and his gun battles are some of the best in cinema history. You feel each bullet hit, the sounds the guns make are fantastic and the scenes are choreographed beautifully. Definitely a feast for your eyes, if heavy fatality massacre is your thing.And that's about all that can be said about the film. Could the story have been better? Yes, definitely, but that still makes the film "merely" good instead of great. Perhaps you won't remember any of the characters all that clearly after some time, but you will definitely remember the action scenes and all the creative ways people get shot and slaughtered. And sometimes that's enough.

This film not only has balls to the wall action and gun fights but it also has a very emotional driven story which is something that you don't see with action films that often. The story follows the story of a hit man with no directly given name that on accident shot an innocent girl blind to get enough money to pay for her surgery to restore her sight he has to take one last job to do so.From here on out there is an amazing film with as I already mentioned some of the greatest gunfights every put on screen and a very emotional touching story. I recommend this film to pretty much anybody that enjoys action films and cinema in general this film is a classic that should not be overlooked.