"One vicious hit-man. One fierce cop. Ten thousand bullets."- from a promotional ad for THE KILLER.
There are two exaggerations in that teaser slogan for THE KILLER. The hit-man played by Chow Yun Fat is actually a suave, rather sentimental anti-hero who is looking to bail out of his deadly-force-for-hire profession. Yes, he's a murderer. But he doesn't enjoy his work. As for the "fierce cop", Danny Lee portrays him as more of a dogged, enthusiastic peace officer than as an maniacal enforcer of the law.
But what about those ten thousand bullets? I'll put it to you this way: at quite a few points in the film you may find yourself sitting there with your mouth agape and your eyes bulging from their sockets. Keep the remote handy also for you may be doing extensive replaying of scenes. The action sequences are mind-boggling in the cleverness of their staging and intensity of their execution. John Woo's best film carries his signature motif of entangling alliances between good guy/bad guy/evil guy(s), spinning around in a hypertensive milieu of criminality where exhaustive foot chases, unbelievable physical dexterity, and claustrophobic showdowns are the norm. And all of this unfolds beneath a firestorm of discharged ammunition.
What has always set Woo's Hong Kong films apart are the exquisitely balletic movements of his actor/characters while under semi-automatic duress (surpassing Peckinpah's earlier but static slo-mo style by leaps and bounds). Working in Hollywood, Woo has been hard pressed to live up to his earlier films. HARD TARGET, BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, et al. are cartoonish popcorn flicks missing the all important complexity and richness of character and story of the Hong Kong films. Hollywood sunders another original talent. But watch THE KILLER, get involved in the story, and look out for those flying bullets. One day, hopefully, Woo will recapture his earlier form.
There are two exaggerations in that teaser slogan for THE KILLER. The hit-man played by Chow Yun Fat is actually a suave, rather sentimental anti-hero who is looking to bail out of his deadly-force-for-hire profession. Yes, he's a murderer. But he doesn't enjoy his work. As for the "fierce cop", Danny Lee portrays him as more of a dogged, enthusiastic peace officer than as an maniacal enforcer of the law.
But what about those ten thousand bullets? I'll put it to you this way: at quite a few points in the film you may find yourself sitting there with your mouth agape and your eyes bulging from their sockets. Keep the remote handy also for you may be doing extensive replaying of scenes. The action sequences are mind-boggling in the cleverness of their staging and intensity of their execution. John Woo's best film carries his signature motif of entangling alliances between good guy/bad guy/evil guy(s), spinning around in a hypertensive milieu of criminality where exhaustive foot chases, unbelievable physical dexterity, and claustrophobic showdowns are the norm. And all of this unfolds beneath a firestorm of discharged ammunition.
What has always set Woo's Hong Kong films apart are the exquisitely balletic movements of his actor/characters while under semi-automatic duress (surpassing Peckinpah's earlier but static slo-mo style by leaps and bounds). Working in Hollywood, Woo has been hard pressed to live up to his earlier films. HARD TARGET, BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II, et al. are cartoonish popcorn flicks missing the all important complexity and richness of character and story of the Hong Kong films. Hollywood sunders another original talent. But watch THE KILLER, get involved in the story, and look out for those flying bullets. One day, hopefully, Woo will recapture his earlier form.