Film Review: The Killer

The Killer
Director: John Woo
A Better Tomorrow Films and Atlas Entertainment
Streaming on Peacock: 08.23

In late 2023, I had the opportunity to chat with legendary director John Woo, who began his career in Hong Kong, went to Hollywood and changed the face of action filmmaking around the world. One of the key points we discussed was his own cinematic influences, as well as the many younger filmmakers who have been influenced by his work. The reason that I bring this up is because as I watched The Killer, the director’s English language reimagining of his 1989 Hong Kong classic, I couldn’t help but view it through this rather specific lens. 

Nathalie Emmanuel (Fast X, Game of Thrones) stars as Zee, a notorious assassin feared throughout the Parisian underworld and known as The Queen of the Dead. Zee is sent on a hit at a Paris night club by her boss and mentor, Finn (Sam Worthington, Avatar), with a strict understanding that no witnesses can remain alive. When a young singer, Jen (Diana Silvers, Space Force, Booksmart) is caught up in the melee, injured and blinded, Zee has a crisis of conscience and spares her life. This doesn’t go over well at all with Finn or his client, and after it’s made clear that the job will be finished with or without her, Zee goes to the hospital where Jen is set to be eliminated, rescues her and runs. Zee’s actions attract the attention of a sharp police investigator, Sey (Omar Sy, Jurassic World, Lupin), and Zee finds herself pursued by from all sides as she uncovers a dark criminal conspiracy and is forced to confront her own past.

The original version of The Killer was was designed to be Woo’s homage to the gangster films of Martin Scorsese, set in the Hong Kong underworld, and just as Woo was inspired by Scorsese, he has inspired other filmmakers. Woo makes more nods here to those directors who have come after than those before him. It’s hard to watch this intriguing new take on The Killer without spotting Woo’s obvious new homages to Quentin Tarantino (Zee fighting villains in a night club with a Samurai sword), The Wachowskis (lots of all black outfits, including sunglasses and trenchcoats), Steven Soderbergh (split screen sequences explaining careful planning of missions) and more. Above all else, in context, this new film is Woo taking charge of Hollywood’s longstanding desire to remake his film, doing it himself and turning it into less of a direct remake than a wistful look back at a career spanning over 50 years—an aging filmmaker’s way of metaphorically singing My Way. A sequence inside a church that creatively addresses Woo’s trademark use of doves and the original meaning of it, symbolizing spiritual peace and innocence, is surprisingly touching. It’s far more accurate to call it a reimaging of The Killer than a remake,  because apart from the basics of the plot set up, this film bares little resemblance to the original. In their new take on the premise, Woo and his screenwriters, Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (LA Confidential) and the team of Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken (10 Cloverfield Lane) have gone with a vastly different approach, giving it an international flavor and more of a spy movie feel—there’s at least as much of the John Woo who directed Mission: Impossible 2 on display here anything else—and they’ve made the title character a woman and significantly reduced the swaggering machismo factor, as well as addressed the problematic and somewhat condescending portrayal of the singer—the only significant female character in the 1989 version—as a naive and helpless waif. The significantly more complicated plot is convoluted and loses much of the simple appeal of the story, yet it’s not meant as a replacement for that film. In the context of acknowledging a Hollywood career that included Face/Off, there’s something about the added silliness of this version that only enhanced the fun for me. 

Emmanuel is  irresistibly charming as Zee, not even trying to fill the shoes of Chow Yun-fat and creating a new character who is hard underwritten yet more morally grounded and easy to get behind. Sy is likable as the police inspector, and the interplay between the two is quite stong. Silver gives a very satisfying performance as Jen, the one character that is hard to question as being superior to the original version. Worthington’s Irish accent is cringeworthy and cartoonish,  though his acting is solid enough, particularly in the context of such a gleefully over-the-top film, and Angeles Woo (John’s daughter) adds a fun presence as Chi Mai, another assassin. The film is packed with far too many characters to keep them all straight, though most of the cast does solid, if forgettable, work.

The Killer runs a bit long, and it’s certainly nothing particularly new, but it’s a fun guilty pleasure movie that I thoroughly enjoyed as a longtime Woo fan who took joy in seeing all of his distinctive signature elements packed into over big rollicking adventure. If you can turn off your brain and view the movie as what it is, rather than holding it to the same standards as an original than was quite groundbreaking for its time, it’s a lively and diverting ride. –Patrick Gibbs

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