← Back to Reviews
 
MovieMeditation presents...
HIS FILM DIARY 2015
total movie count ........... current day count
238 .......................... 261

__________________________


July 31st

—— 1989 ——
THE KILLER
—— action ——



I haven’t seen nearly enough of John Woo when he was doing Hong Kong Fu
and chop-up stick action flicks in the vein of traditional southern Chinese panache


Woo’s style is instantly identifiable due to a certain wow-factor and fast-paced action in slow-motion. His signature style has become even more prominent over the past years, especially with his work in America, where he seemed to turn up all levels of action on full blast. Lately though, he seems to have been flying back to his suitable domestic roots and away from those shoot-outs and white doves that he almost turned into a full-blown cliché. ‘The Killer’ happens to be one of his most popular earlier flicks, and while ‘Hard-Boiled’ didn’t impress me much, I still had high hopes for this one…

Something that was quite clear from the very beginning was that this movie wasn’t really about a cold-blooded killer who wanted to paint the city red. John Woo wanted to tell a story where the audience could be emotionally invested and morally tested. This is hardly even about the killer who is, but more the killer who was, since we see Yun-Fat Chow’s character heading for retirement. His last job puts him in a strange situation, where he opens his eyes to the world after causing unwanted pain and tragedy to a civilian, blinding a woman at a nightclub shoot out… a loss of sight leads to an increase of hearing, not for the wounded but for the weary traveler on his journey to his final destination. He begins to fall in love with this woman and decides to accept one last job in order to save the sight of this poor woman. Things don’t go as planned though and Ah Jong (Yun-Fat Chow) ends up in a mess much bigger than he asked for. Suddenly, it is the hitman who is hunted and the roles reversed. Jong now finds himself in a torn situation where he must balance two things – his pistol and his promise.

‘The Killer’ as a movie is also extremely well-balanced, I love the emotional core to the story with the outer shell of bullet rain. There are plenty of awesome shoot outs and inventive action, but this film has some weight to it and wants to strike a little deeper than a bullet to the heart. John Woo hits his most definitely mark and the film is both wonderfully waggish, witty and a weaponry heaven for any action fan out there. The last shoot out really lifted the film as well, since love and lunacy collided with each other and helped strengthen the fact that the title is a delightfully simple understatement as well. Ah Jong is a man who kills with kindness as well as lethal force and ‘The Killer’ is one hell of a deadly cinematic weapon!


++

__________________________