John Woo fans have more to celebrate following the auteur’s 75th birthday, specificially for folks who are subscribed to NBCUniversal streamer Peacock with the announcement of a remake of 1989 action hit, The Killer.
Chow Yun-Fat starred in the original which centers on an assassin who accidentally damages the eyes of the singer during a shootout and decides to perform one last hit to pay for her operation. The film was posied for a remake twenty years ago and circled a number of screenwriters, potential stars and directors, the latest being actress Lupita Nyong’o who boarded the project in early 2019 and left it later that year.
Having proliferated himself as an auteur of ‘bullet ballet’ action cinema with The Killer and other hits like A Better Tomorrow and Hard-Boiled, Woo went on to carry over his Hong Kong accolades to the Western world, working with stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme (Hard Target), Chrisrian Slater (Broken Arrow), John Travolta (Broken Arrow, Face/Off), Nicolas Cage (Face/Off, Windtalkers), Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible 2), Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman (Paycheck) and Dolph Lundgren (Blackjack).
Woo would also go on to executive produce a televised reimagining of his 1991 caper, Once A Thief, as well as Antoine Fuqua’s The Replacement Killers, and Kirk Wong’s The Big Hit, as well as produce Shinji Aramaki’s Appleseed: Ex-Machina, and produce and co-write Song Hae-sung’s 2010 remake of Woo’s 1986 classic, A Better Tomorrow and co-direct with Su Chao-pin for Michelle Yeoh headliner, Reign Of Assassins; Saving Mr. Wu helmer Ding Sheng would go on to direct his own reimagining of A Better Tomorrow (2018) without Woo’s involvement.
Following the two-part epics, Red Cliff and The Crossing, Woo also directed Manhunt with Hanyu Zhang and Masaharu Fukuyama, and is currently in production on Joel Kinnaman headliner, Silent Night, from Thunder Road Pictures and Capstone Studios.
Casting and crew updates remain pending for Woo’s new version of The Killer, which will stream on Peacock in 2023.
More at Variety.
Lead photo: Film Workshop