The Killer (aka: Diexue Shuang Xiong) is a masterpiece of sorrowful drama and screen violence, and a showcase for some of the most fantastic gun battles ever filmed, with an official body count of 120. It was made after John Woo had completed the classics A Better Tomorrow (1986) and sequel A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987), both of which starred the often smartly dressed Chow, and it further polished the grand operatic style that signified the director's oeuvre of 'ballistic ballet'. The Killer was Woo's first international success, becoming a formative essay in the 'heroic bloodshed' subgenre and, since then, its style has been widely imitated by other filmmakers, especially in Hollywood, yet rarely with a fraction of the genuinely imaginative, visual flair demonstrated here by Woo.

Woo has acknowledged Jean-Pierre Melville's European art film Le Samourai (aka: The Godson, 1967) with Alain Delon, as the inspiration for this movie, and the closing sequence, pitting Jeff and Li against a final attack by the baddies pays homage to Peckinpah's seminal western, The Wild Bunch (1969). However, The Killer is much more than the sum of these cinephile references. Woo's intuitive aesthetic sense brought Hong Kong martial arts' acrobatic stunts and the ethical codes of chivalry and honour from Japanese samurai pictures to the stylised and knowingly intense yet choreographed mayhem of the modern crime thriller. With its story of two men on opposite sides of the law, both in love with the same girl, The Killer has a deceptively simple plot. What makes it an important genre film is the sheer artistic vitality and cinematic flamboyance of its hi-energy shootouts.

As many critics have noted, the characters of cop and killer are flipsides of the same movie icon, a tough gunman at odds with the realities of the world he works and lives in. Jeff is the archetypal killer who has grown tired of killing, while Li is the ruthless lawman determined to bring his nemesis to justice. When they wind up fighting together, as loyal 'brothers' facing a common foe against the odds, all the familiar clichés of gallant knights and honest cowboys are recast in a new and unusual setting. The emotive climax in a besieged church, where symbolic doves and racked candles decorate and illuminate the struggling heroes' last stand, sees our fearless champions slaying many more of their anonymous, bullet-magnet enemies, before the inevitably tragic dénouement.

Hollywood plans to remake The Killer, with Denzel Washington and Richard Gere as stars, fell through (thankfully?) when director Walter Hill turned it down. The speedboat chase was reprised at far greater expense and length in Woo's own US produced Face/Off, and although his American film amounts to a spectacular revision of this one, there can be little doubt that The Killer is more coherent and original, except for some brilliantly orchestrated shootouts in Face/Off, like the spectacularly imaginative sequence with mirrors, which distinguished it from the majority of less cinematically adventurous Hollywood fare.

So what's the link with Disney about? Well, the original version of The Killer, Chow's character was known as Mickey Mouse, and Lee's was nicknamed Dumbo... until the corporate suits took offence at this blatant 'misuse' of the world famous cartoon icons. Eventually, all references were removed from both soundtrack and subtitles.

REVIEW:
From the synopsis, it sounds like your average action flick, right? WRONG. This is an action film, there’s no doubt about that but if there’s one thing this film isn’t, its average.

When we first meet Jeff (Chow Yun Fat), he’s in a church before pulling a job and he’s met by Brother Sei (Chu Kong) a retired hitman who now operates as middle man for Jeff. Jeff performs a hit in a nightclub and accidentally blinds Jenny (Sally Yeh) who is a nightclub singer. Overcome with guilt, he watches her perform and comes to her rescue when she’s attacked by some thugs. Jeff befriends her and falls in love with her. When we meet Inspector Li, he’s in the midst of a weapons deal which goes wrong once a policeman stumbles into the middle of it and gets shot. Li chases the gangster responsible and shoots him on a tram. Li is reprimanded because the hostage the gangster was holding had a heart attack and died on the spot. Jeff decides to pull one last job before retiring to a life of harmony with Jenny and also help her pay for an eye operation she needs. Jeff pulls off the job in spectacular fashion in a classic scene (one of many), but he’s betrayed by the people that hired him and also Brother Sei, who has his own reasons. Jeff has now caught the eye of Li, who wants to capture him. All this culminates in one of the most awesome shootouts ever filmed.

What else can be said about this masterpiece of a film and the pinnacle of HK filmmaking or any other accolades which have been laid at its feet and deservedly so. For a start, the characters are exceedingly well written. Chow Yun Fat brings style and grace to the role of Ah Jong, even though he’s a hired killer, Chow makes us feel for him with every word and facial gesture. Danny Lee is suitably entertaining as Inspector Li, although not as flashy as Chow. He brings the requisite amount of weariness that the role needs. Sally Yeh is fine but nothing really to write home about. Her role was significantly underwritten as a result of her being less than committed to the film at the time. Other fine supporting turns include Chu Kong, Kenneth Tsang and Shing Fui On. The music is still quite powerful, it has a resonance even today and it hasn’t dated one bit. Every time I hear Ah-Jong’s theme it’s almost heartbreaking.

The action scenes in this film border on the near ridiculous. There’s more firepower here than the war in Afghanistan. Woo enjoys building his action scenes, so we get a few small ones to start off with and they progressively get more and more elaborate. Finally we’re in a church and the casualty rate is getting higher and higher. It’s funny to think this film was made on a budget of $2 million. It’s really a low budget action film compared to the kind of Hollywood action films we’re used to seeing. There’s nothing more to say on this film. Buy it. Watch and keep it in your collection forever because that’s where it belongs.

Chow Yun Fat, in his most mythic role, portrays a professional hit man who still plays by the rules. In completing a contract he accidentally blinds a nightclub singer, Sally Yeh. His enormous feelings of guilt soon leads to love, but of course she has no idea that he is the person who blinded her. Chow Yun Fat takes one last job to pay for an operation to restore Sally s eyesight, but he is betrayed by the triad head, Shing Fui-On, who hired him and now refuses to pay him. In fact, he is intent on killing him because he thinks Chow Yun Fat will betray him. He does not in the least understand that Chow Yun Fat would never betray his code. This sort of honor is lost on him.

At the same time, a cop, Danny Lee, is also after the killer, but soon realizes after Chow Yun Fat saves a little girl s life that he is no ordinary killer. He relates to his partner, Chang (Kenneth Tsang), that "He is different from other killers. He comes across so calm, acts like he has a dream, eyes filled with passion". Soon a bond grows between the two as they come to realize that they are very much the same even though one is a killer and one is a cop. In one scene, their images become interchangeable through the refracted glass. They eventually team up to fight the triad bad guys.

One of the most interesting characters in the film is Sidney. His character represents honor that has slowly been corroded by time and the corruption of the present day. He is an ex-hit man and friend of Chow Yun Fat, who now is acting as the intermediary between Chow Yun Fat and Shing Fui-On. At one point he betrays Chow Yun Fat, but the shame of this action later leads him to go to the triad head and demand to get the money to pay Chow Yun Fat. In an incredibly powerful scene, Woo edits back and forth between Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee talking about the loss of honor in the world and Sidney receiving redemption at the brutal hands of Shing Fui-On.

The two main action scenes take place within the last 30 minutes of the film and the action and killing is so overwhelming and stylistic that it soon becomes almost surreal. To many, it all may seem too much. I have lent this tape to friends and they have looked at me like I was crazy when I told them I thought it was one of the greatest films ever made. And I can understand that. Woo holds nothing back - no half measure, no sentiment not laid bare. Woo utilizes a number of film techniques such as slowing down the speed, freeze frame, cutting out the sound, religious symbolism and music to wonderful effect and to truly mythologize Chow Yun Fat. The musical cues and sentiments and themes might appear overly dramatic to a western audience. But to me, it is all heart from the opening sequence to the final almost Shakespearean tragically ironic ending.

Chow Yun-Fat plays Jeff, a hitman who has a change of heart after he accidentally blinds a night club singer named Jennie. He agrees to pull off one last job so he can pay for a cornea transplant for her. However, after Jeff is spotted after the job by hot-headed Inspector Li, the Triad views "the killer" as a threat and tries to kill him. Escaping his would-be assassins, Jeff (with the aid of his only friend, Sydney) tries to get the money the Triad owes him, with Li in hot pursuit. Eventually, Jeff and Li must join forces to survive, resulting in an awesome gunfight (inside a church, no less) and one of the most "un-Hollywood" endings ever filmed.

While Jennie's songs (which repeat throughout the film) get annoying and the symbolism can be a bit overbearing, The Killer (the film that brought Woo and CYF international recognition) is nonetheless a masterpiece of filmmaking. From the first shot to the last, this is Woo at his best. When I first saw this movie, I absolutely freaked -- there's quite simply nothing like it. If you consider yourself an action fan (or just a movie fan) and you haven't seen this, do so now.

So I hope you'll understand my joy when I discovered that "The Killer" would be coming out on DVD again. Althought not with the Criterion Collection's super-duper deluxe treatment, I don't really care because I finally own one of the greatest action movies I've ever seen in a pristine, digital format.

In what may be arguably considered to be one of John Woo's greatest films (the other being "Hard Boiled"), Woo takes his themes of honor, duty, and friendship to incredible heights. And of course, there's Woo's trademark over-the-top, yet never gratuitous violence. In fact, Woo is the only director who can take blood spurting out of a fresh gunshot wound and somehow extract some sort of abstract beauty from it. Combatants, pistols in each hand, spin and pirouette like dancers packing heat; bodies flying through the air jerk and twitch as they're riddled with bullets; explosions fill the screen as cars explode and buildings are shot up. It's a wonder that it all doesn't become a muddled mess of blood and fire, but under Woo's guidance, it unfolds like an opera or one of the musicals that Woo was fascinated by as a child.

Chow Yun-Fat plays Jeffrey, the best hitman in the business. The only problem is that Jeffrey has a conscience. When he accidentally blinds a lounge singer during a hit, he takes it upon himself to watch over her. When he discovers that a costly operation is the only thing that can return her sight, he takes one last job. However, his employers are afraid that he has been discovered, and refuse to pay the fee, even sending other hitmen and Jeffrey's best friend against him. On top of that, Jeffrey has a cop, Li (played by Danny Lee), on his trail. But once Li discovers that Jeffrey actually operates under a code of honor, he finds himself siding with the hitman as the film reaches its conclusion.

Chow Yun-Fat is in peak form here, as he slides through each scene with more charisma and grace in his pinky than most of Hollywood's "leading men" have in their entire body. He's equally skilled at portraying the cold, efficient killer as well as the noble man pained by the consequences of his lifestyle. Although Danny Lee and Sally Yeh (who portrays Jenny, the singer Jeffrey wounds) do fine jobs as well, this is really Chow Yun-Fat's tour de force. The only actor who comes close to matching Chow Yun-Fat is Chu Kong, who plays Jeffrey's best friend and contact, Sydney. The scenes between Sydney and Jeffrey are all excellent, but Sydney's shining moment takes place when he tries to retrieve Jeffrey's money. Even after being beaten and humiliated, he refuses to back down, determined to remain faithful to his friend.

It's really impossible to take this film realistically, given the outrageous action sequences and gunfights. Each one becomes more outrageous than the one before, until it culminates in a violent bloodbath at a monastery. However, i found myself more intrigued by the little, less violent flourishes. Only Woo can take the act of picking up a pistol and make it look like a spiritual act. During the boat chase, when Li first crosses paths with Jeffrey, Woo intercuts scenes with a traditional dragon boat race. One second, you'll see the hitman and his police pursuers in modern speedboats. The next sees a hundred men rowing with all of their might, water churning and drums pounding out the rhythm of the scene. It sounds like a simple juxtaposition, but it adds a tension to the chase.

However, I think my favorite image in the movie takes place after a beachfront shootout. Jeffrey has rushed a little girl shot in the melee to the local hospital, with Li in hot pursuit. Jeffrey holds Li and his partner in gunpoint, waiting to see if the girl pulls through. Woo frames in close to the girl's still fingers - they look like the most delicate, fragile things in the world. We watch them twitch as the girl regains consciousness, and a gentle melody is heard. Woo cuts back to Jeffrey, and we watch this vicious killer, gun in hand, grin with relief. it's at that point that we know this is no ordinary hitman, but a man with nobility and honor. It's this theme of nobility and honor that underscores everything Woo does in "The Killer", and keeps the movie from being reduced to a violent bloodbath resorting to gratuitousness to be entertaining. That's what Hollywood is for.

Chow Yun Fat is a hitman betrayed by the society for whom he works and now desperate to escape. After accidentally blinding nightclub singer Sally Yeh he becomes tortured by guilt and decides to carry out his next contract only so that he can afford to pay for her much needed treatment. Danny Lee plays the cop trying to catch him. The two form a strange bond as Danny, trying to get into the head of his quarry, develops a deep admiration and almost an obsession. Catching the killer becomes all important until the ludicrously frenetic ending where the two join forces to battle against an army of gangsters.

Woven around this framework is some of the most beautifully filmed action ever committed to film. Techniques that Woo perfected in this movie are still being copied by numerous film makers today. The film's climax takes place in a church and uses imagery that John Woo has repeated in his Hollywood films. The whole scene is a cornerstone of action cinema which sees Chow Yun Fat, dressed entirely in white, and Danny Lee fight an almost impossible battle against wave upon wave of attackers. The other thing worth noting about the film is its extremely dark tone in the final minutes; something that really differentiated it from the norm of action movies of the time.

A must have for any Hong Kong film fan.