Director – John Woo – 1989 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 110m
*****
Having accidentally blinded a nightclub singer in a hit, a gunman takes on one last job to fund the operation to restore her eyesight – back out in a 4K restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, March 20th
Following the success of A Better Tomorrow (1986), this secured John Woo the international interest that would eventually bring Hollywood offers. Woo further distils A Better Tomorrow’s themes of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal through the device of a cop first facing off against and subsequently bonding with the assassin he’s pursuing; many consider The Killer Woo’s finest achievement.
Professional assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat) accidentally blinds nightclub singer Jennie (Sally Yeh) with a stray bullet in a hit to become the focus of his guilt. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee) is trying to catch him.
The backdrop is already familiar Woo and Hong Kong gangster genre territory – triad hits and betrayals, working cops misunderstood by their superiors. The action set pieces rank among the director’s finest: the opening night club slaying, the Dragon Boat Festival hit followed by the fight on the beach, car chases and multi-storey car park shoot outs, all topped by the brilliantly choreographed and seemingly endless final shoot out wherein killer and cop join forces in a church surrounded by unfriendly gangsters. The overall feel is extremely violent and bloody even by Hong Kong standards, not least on account of the quietly intense drama in between the slow-motion ballistics:
Ah Jong’s doomed determination that his one last kill should pay to restore Yeh’s eyesight and Li YIng’s slow realisation that he may have a great deal in common with his supposed quarry are beautifully understated and transcend the immediate brutality of the shoot outs. Thirty-five plus years on, the powerful emotion of the extraordinary two lead performances remain a high point in the director’s oeuvre.
The Killer is back out in a 4K restoration in cinemas in the UK on Friday, March 20th.
Trailer: