REEL ACTION: John Woo’s The Killer (1989)

Last Updated on July 26, 2021

THE KILLER (1989)

Rating: 4 out of 4
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Tagline: One vicious hitman. One Fierce Cop. Ten thousand bullets.

Directed by: John Woo
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Danny lee, Sally Yeh.

THE PLAN: Professional assassin Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat) is a thoughtful, soul-searching killer with principals. During a late-night hit, he accidentally blinds innocent civilian Jenny (Sally Yen). After deciding to care for Jenny, Jeff finds himself squaring off against two drastically different opponents: a rogue detective determined to take him down, and a psychotic gangster who wants him dead. What’s a killer to do?!

 

THE KILL: I’ll admit with no shame that I had no idea who John Woo was before 1993. It was that year that his American debut, HARD TARGET, was released with some fanfare – but perhaps more importantly, it was when we started to hear the jabbering of a precocious young director named Quentin Tarantino. His RESERVOIR DOGS came out a year earlier, and his PULP FICTION was on the horizon, so somewhere in between we found out just how much the guy liked to talk. And talk about movies. About movies a lot of us young film geeks had never heard of. And one of those movies was THE KILLER.

“Get your gun our of my f-” “No YOU get your gun out of my face-” “No, you!”

No getting around it, QT introduced me and a lot of other people to the incredibly violent world of John Woo, a man who staged his gunplay as if it were a ballet; who sees fit to mix kung-fu with dove-fu; who introduced us to a particularly splendid actor named Chow Yun-Fat – still the coolest motherf*cker ever to wield two guns. While there’s been many imitators, there’s really no one who comes close to Woo’s electric, breathtaking style.

That’s not to say there’s no heart here. Not afraid to show its soft side, Woo brings the sadness of THE KILLER’s story front and center as well, and the movie plays out as like the most bullet-riddled tragedy you’ve ever seen. The entire thrust of the tale hinges on Jeffrey’s sensitivity. Pretty unusual for a movie that literally kills over a hundred people.

The trailer for THE KILLER!

And kill them it does. Fat’s Jeffrey isn’t content to just shoot a guy once or twice and presume he’s dead. No, he empties clips into dudes. Early on in the film, he shoots his main target in square in the forehead, and then, without hesitation, shoots him three more times in the chest. He never runs out of bullets, he hardly even reloads, but we forgive the movie this bit of fantasy because it’s just so damn enjoyable to watch him unload on someone. Call it primal, call it sadistic, but there’s no denying that Woo reaches into that special place within all of us who loves seeing chaos reign and squibs burst.

TOP DEATH: You know the one where the guy gets shot like 10 times and he screams and flies backward and crashes into something? That one.

TOP ACTION: Hard to determine which body-dropping sequence in the most potent, but I suppose the climax within the church is hard to top, if only because at that point you’re heavily invested in the newfound friendship between cop and killer.

FEMALE EXPLOITATION: None. Sally Yen’s Jenny is a sweet girl – don’t you think about her that way!

HOMOEROTIC MOMENT: The relationship between Jeffrey and Li is one of the great Bromances in action movie history (then even have cute nicknames for each other: “Dumbo” and “Mickey Mouse”) – AND they both have separate bromances happening on the side!

TOP DIALOGUE: Jeffrey: “You’re an unusual cop.”
Li: “And you’re an unusual killer.”

DRINKING GAME: If I wanted you dead, I could tell you to drink every time Jeff shoots somebody… I suppose I’ll only put you in a coma by telling you to drink whenever a slow motion sequence with tender music arises.

TRIVIA: Walter Hill (THE WARRIORS, 48 HRS.) was set to direct an English-language remake starring Richard Gere, but it thankfully fell apart. As of 2007, Korean director John H. Lee has been attached to a remake (with Woo on as producer), but so far nothing has really developed. (Again, thankfully.)

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