THE KILLER – Shout! Review: Quite Possibly The Best Version Ever Put On Physical Media
Until recently, the last time I saw John Woo’s 1989 hitman thriller, The Killer, was on an English-dubbed VHS tape. It had been maybe twenty six or so years since then but I barely remembered how it ended. All I could remember, however, were a few of its story points and its illustrious aesthetics in its attributes to Hong Kong action and “bullet ballet”.
Thankfully, the film has stayed the course over the years even keeping up on DVD and Blu-Ray depending on where you look. Criterion’s own DVD release has been Out-Of-Print for years and with the advent of Blu-Rays and 4K UHDs, it was high time that someone took the mantle and brought this classic back. That, ultimately, is where Shout! Studios (and Arrow for the UK by next year) comes in with a relenting rollout for Woo fans on a number of titles, including and especially the hit Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee and Sally Yeh starrer.
The Killer marks another ascent in Woo’s career as one of the last few films on which he would partner with producer Tsui Hark after the first two A Better Tomorrow installments. It also reunites Woo with the star of both of his A Better Tomorrow films, Chow, in addition with the actor pairing opposite Lee since Ringo Lam’s City On Fire in which Chow plays a deep cover cop against Lee’s armed gang leader. Quite the role reversal here…
Ah Jong (Chow) is a hitman for hire when he’s tasked with a target at a nightclub wherein he ends up blinding beautiful singer Jennie (Yeh) in the crossfire. Aggrieved by the mishap, Ah Jong moves in on Jennie to help take care for her as he preps for one last hit to help pay for a timely cornea transplant. Meanwhile, Li Ying (Lee) is a Hong Kong cop beleagured by the intricate demands of his station when his actions result in the death of a hostage after a botched night time sting operation.
Things escalate when Ah Jong nails his next target on the day of a festive boat race where Li and his partner Sgt. Tsang (Kenneth Tsang) are assigned. An explosive cat-and-mouse game ensues as Ah Jong finds himself pursued relentlessly by foes on both sides of the law, in a story that further explores the extent of trust and friendship beyond betrayal, and the law.
That paradigm is set firmly between Ah Jong’s friendship with handler Fung (Paul Chu), as well as Li as the story progresses, and even with Jennie with whom Ah Jong is yet to fully disclose who he is with her as the plot thickens. Li’s end of this story takes on a life of its own with the character immersed in profiling Ah Jong from the moment they first clash in the first half of the film.
Yeh is impeccable in the role of Jennie, with the actress lending her iconic voice to the film’s soundtrack. Lee is joined on screen by co-star Tsang in his return to Woo’s lens following A Better Tomorrow and its sequel, with a role that gels heartily as Li’s affable senior and equally determined partner. The villainous Wong Hoi is played by the late Shing Fui-On, whose character is the ambitious nephew of one of Ah Jong’s targets and newly-ascended triad boss.
What I felt was one core highlight of The Killer is the strength of Ah Jong’s friendships. It’s one of the most discernible characterisitics of a Woo film for a great deal of his work, and I love how it rubs off in some of his crossover work in the 90s in Hollywood. It’s a tremendous set up to so many of the film’s action setpieces from the car chase to the hospital, as well as the shootout at Ah Jong’s apartment and seaside hideout, and the final church sequence. The most unnerving moment is when Ah Jong and Li Ying meet at gunpoint at Jenny’s apartment under the guise of being old friends who go by nicknames based on famous cartoon characters.
It takes a long while for that friendship to establish, which makes it all the more welcoming as the plot heats up. I would also go as far as to call it essential for a film like the The Killer considering how grim it gets in the final act. Barring any details I could go into to expand on this aspect, if you know, you know, and if not, consider yourself invited to a viewing of The Killer and find out.
Whether or not you take to the film’s 4K UHD or Blu-Ray transfer is entirely up to you. The film also comes with requisite English and Cantonese tracks in addition to commentary tracks: In the first track, Drew Tayler sits with the acclaimed director for an enlivening discussion about the film, during which Woo credits his instinct in helping him design the action sequences, as well as Stanley Kubrick as his influence for the iconic shot of Chow shooting a gun with the fake blood splattering in the background. He also shares a hilarious backstory about the fight scene in which Ah Jong rescues Jennie from a pair of muggers.
The second commentary track comes from author and film critic David West who bills The Killer as the “apotheosis” of Woo’s style. West addresses the accompanying French and Japanese influences behind Woo’s work in addition to the various technical aspects behind the film’s poise and presentation, such as his use of color during certain scenes. Additionally, there’s some cool trivia here early on where West mentions how the film was released a month after the Tianamen Square massacre, and also goes into Woo’s own religious convictions and how they weighs into his craft. The third commentary included features Woo and production partner Terence Chang’s inserts, transferred accordingly from from the film’s Criterion Collection DVD release.
All commentary tracks are included on both of the film’s 4K UHD and Blu-Ray discs. The third disc in the bundle lends one of the heaviest loads of extras I’ve ever seen included on a physical media release for this film, beginning with “The Hero Of Heroic Bloodshed,” a 74-minute documentary featuring interviews with Woo, as well as a row of other film experts and folks who’ve worked with the director, partly including the film’s uncredited stunt coordinator Bruce Law, film historian Kim Newman, filmmaker Roel Reiné, Mike Werb and Michael Colleary who wrote Face/Off, and Lori Tilkin De Felice who worked as producer on Woo’s 2024 remake of The Killer starring Nathalie Emmanuel.
Woo himself continues to regale the masses in a 44-minute interview titled “A Bullet Ballet,” wherein, in part, he talks about how he shot the film with no script at one point and using just a simple outline. True Wild West shit. The next six minutes feature the aforementioned Terence Chang sitting in for “My Kind Of Hero: Remembering The Killer” in which he talks about what it took to sell the film to buyers at markets, and how the production didn’t use soundstage and instead just used a warehouse, and even one specific building on which the production used props to construct a makeshift church for the film’s opening and penultimate scenes.
“Editing The Killer” taps in David Wu who talks about the importance of clocking music cues properly to make a film work, as how he chooses music to accentuate action and drama and more. Last but not least, disc three chimes in with another episode of Hong Kong Confidential, bringing Grady Hendrix back into the mix with a look on how The Killer came to be “the movie where John Woo becomes John Woo”. It’s a truly intricate summary of how the film came to be and the hurdles it faced along the way, including what Woo had to deal with since Cinema City insisted on Chow being the star despite his unavailability, and how Chow ended up saving the film after Woo had already begun shooting part of his movie without a star, and the role co-star Danny Lee played in keeping the film going behind the scenes.
The third disc throws in more killer action and drama with up to twelve minutes of deleted/extended footage, using inserts and cuts that are substantial to the Hong Kong cut – albeit dubbed in Mandarin audio for the film’s adjacent Taiwan releases. The disc rounds off with a six minute trailer reel comprised of the OG Hong Kong and English trailers, and a slideshow of more than six dozen photos, lettercards and posters.
Hendrix expounds further on Woo’s stoic journey in making The Killer in “The Passion Of The Killer,” the first of Shout!’s four-chapter booklet, with “Male Bonding And Nostalgia in The Killer” comprising Victor Fan’s contribution going into Woo’s Christian and Greek influences and inspirations from early Cantonese cinema. Callum Waddel sets his sights on Hong Kong’s transformation in the last half-century with “Assassinating Expectations,” with a look at the Tianamen Square riots and 2020’s National Security Law as focal points of the film’s reception and eventful shelflife. And finally, Brandon Bentley’s “Motion Picture Assassins Of America” holds a mirror to the association responsible for its rating system of films, bringing to question the prevalence of time and reception of various action films compared to the hurdles The Killer faced in its varying cuts and releases.
I’m still up in the air about which of any of Woo’s OG films are my favorite. For years it’s been a toss-up between The Killer and 1992’s Hard Boiled, but I feel really lucky that Woo’s 1989 original is getting the red carpet treatment fans have been pining for on physical media for the last decade or so.
While Woo’s 2024 remake hits different for some and holds its own for others, it’s nice to see that a label like Shout! is able to step in and salvage these titles for a high-quality refurbish as the chances of them ever getting upgrades from their earlier prints were once close to nil. That especially goes for The Killer, a must-see action film for the apt and curious cinephile and action fan. Buy it today at Gruv.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
