By With how prevalent remakes and reimaginings have been for the last… forever, I wouldn’t hold it against you to groan at the very idea of an English-language remake of John Woo’s legendary 1989 action film The Killer. Created in a very specific Hong Kong style with so much stylish flair that it could practically walk down the runway, The Killer may be the most pivotal film in all of Woo’s filmography. It, along with the first two A Better Tomorrow films, solidified Woo as the premiere action director of the late 80s and early 90s.
So why has he decided 35 years later to direct a remake of that seminal classic? Well, the background behind this particular iteration of The Killer is maybe more interesting than the movie itself, but it stems from a failed English reboot nearly two decades ago to just a general interest from Woo at reimagining his classic. See, most American filmgoers won’t know it, but Woo was heavily inspired by the works of Jean Pierre-Melville, in particular the 1967 classic Le Samourai.
While The Killer and its star Chow Yun-Fat borrowed heavily from the iconography of Le Samourai star Alain Delon, the films could only draw so much from that original story. With this remake, Woo was given a chance to recreate Pierre-Melville’s film more faithfully and he’s taken that idea and run with it… until he stops and The Killer becomes another messy late-period Woo movie.
The Killer
Director: John Woo
Release Date: August 23, 2024 (Peacock)
Rating: R
The Killer begins almost identically to Le Samourai by starting in protagonist Zee’s (Nathalie Emmanuel) apartment. We get some establishing shots of her little slice of paradise and even an obligatory shot in a church with doves flying in slow motion before the film cuts over to detectives Sey (Omar Sy) and Jax (Gregory Montel) doing some routine police work. The two ram their car into Coco’s (Hugo Diego Garcia) and put him under arrest for suspicion in a heroin case. Coco isn’t having that, so he shoots Jax in the leg, punches Sey, and jumps back into his car. Not even 10 minutes into the film and The Killer is putting action front and center.
After that is handled, there’s a small bit of exposition between Zee and her armorer, Tessier (Tcheky Karyo), that kicks into a nightclub scene which forms the foundation for this film’s plot. If the title of the film wasn’t a giveaway, Zee is a hired gun and she completes contracts to earn a living. While we don’t know the reasons why as of yet, she is at this nightclub to execute a bunch of crooked men and leave without a trace.
After another rather thrilling action set-piece chock full of “oh shit!” moments, Zee is all but finished with her hit. During the chaos, a young singer by the name of Jenn (Diana Silvers) fell and smacked her head. When Zee approaches her to end her life, Jenn begins to scream out that she cannot see. The fall blinded her and in a moment of doubt, Zee leaves the woman alive. That decision doesn’t sit well with her boss, Finn (Sam Worthington). He gives her some stern words before sending her to finish the job and the rest of the film deals with the ramifications of Zee’s uncharacteristic decision.
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For an opening 30 minutes, The Killer sets up a breakneck pace and style that the rest of the film likely could never hope to live up to. It’s jammed with almost everything John Woo’s films have come to be known for and executes them in brilliantly bloody fashion. I can recall what a critic said to me at my screening of Silent Night last year, which went something like, “You’d think an old master would mellow out as he ages.” This certainly isn’t Woo’s most violent film, but there are copious amounts of blood spilled throughout.
Where The Killer really starts to stall is when it tries to develop its characters further. I think this is more a victim of being a streaming movie instead of a theatrical one, but this new interpretation of The Killer runs two hours in length. That’s not preposterously long, but it’s longer than the original and certainly much longer than this specific story needed to be. If we look at Le Samourai, that film would have been wrapped up for nearly 20 minutes by the time this movie is concluding.
You’d think more John Woo action wouldn’t be bad, but The Killer almost puts the breaks on things for its entire second act. That’s where this movie is bafflingly similar to last year’s Silent Night: it knows how to start and end its narrative, but it can’t figure out what to do in between those segments. There are a couple of funny character moments here and I do dig most of the irreverent dialogue. In some ways, The Killer is written like a Tarantino movie where certain quirks are thrown in to spice things up rather than lead to any particular story developments.
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But after all of that intense action in the beginning, the biggest segment in the middle is a motorcycle chase that barely constitutes being called a chase. Zee gets on a random bike to speed after some gangsters, she punches one guy in the face, a car flips, and it’s basically over. Props to Woo for not using a CGI car this time (the budget for The Killer is reportedly about three times that of Silent Night), but that sequence goes nowhere.
The story also gets bogged down in a lot of twists and turns that wind up being red herrings. Right before the second act was wrapping up, I said to myself, “There isn’t much of a villain in his film.” While villain is a reductive term considering Zee’s background, I was referring to the fact that there didn’t seem to be any motivation for Zee to continue on her path. No one had been established as pulling the strings and while the action was neat, it wasn’t spaced out well enough to keep the film engaging in lieu of a strong plot.
At one point, we get introduced to the Saudi Prince, played by Said Taghmaoui, and he seemingly acts as a distraction rather than a character. Officer Sey has an encounter with him and you think the plot will include the prince more, but nope. He gets dropped for a rather obvious twist -which I won’t spoil, just in case- that involves the heroin I mentioned earlier. Despite being obviously involved, too, he’s never seen again.
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The final act then rushes to its conclusion and puts Zee and Sey together with little development, but that’s fine. The action returns in full force and after a rather brutal execution of John Woo’s daughter, Angeles Woo (here playing an unnamed assassin), the finale doesn’t step off the gas pedal. It’s contrived as hell and you can clearly tell that the editors were scrambling to figure out what pieces to keep in, but it concludes with a bang.
Now, much like with Silent Night last year, anyone expecting Woo to redefine action cinema again is going to be sorely disappointed. There isn’t much else left for Woo to do with regard to how he can shape popular culture. His films have had an indelible impact on many filmmakers, but those filmmakers are now in their 40s and 50s. Woo, himself approaching 80, gave everyone a foundation to build upon. At this point, he is content to play within the same confines he established rather than attempt to create something entirely new.
That’s not a bad thing, mind you. While the editing for dialogue can be super basic in The Killer, the action is framed well and shot in a gritty and visceral manner. Very much, this feels like those late 80s and early 90s Woo movies and there are references strewn about. One sequence set in a hospital has nothing on Hard-Boiled’s single take, but it tickles your nostalgic bone while keeping the intensity cranked high. The only time the action fumbles is with that motorcycle chase, but even that is over quickly.
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What doesn’t sell The Killer is its acting. Nathalie Emmanuel is overall solid as the titular killer and I did enjoy Omar Sy’s turn as the detective, but the rest of the cast is mostly on autopilot. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Sam Worthington and while he has grown as an actor since Avatar back in 2009, he isn’t convincing as an Irishman. Diana Silvers, as well, feels like she is giving an incredibly forced dramatic performance, with her shouting, “I CAN’T SEE,” being almost comically bad.
Considering the format that this movie will play on, however, I guess The Killer is some prestige streaming bait. Peacock, as a service, has never really had much that made it enticing as a subscription model. I suppose folks love The Office and it was fun back in 2021 when you could watch Halloween Kills in 4K at home the same day it was in theaters, but what else is there? The failed John Wick spin-off series is certainly not a draw and watching reruns of Saved by the Bell sounds like a twisted version of hell, so The Killer gives you something to tune into.
That said, there are elements here that clue you into the constraints of streaming and that’s the ultimate downfall of The Killer. With tighter editing and some more bombastic sound design, this could be a really damn good movie. It has a bunch of fun elements and the intro is better than a lot of blockbusters playing in theaters now, but eventually, it falls apart. We don’t need funky split-screen segments to be entertained and Woo is capable of much better than basic shot/reverse shot dialogue bits.
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While I’m conflicted about The Killer, overall, I would say it’s pretty fine. This was likely never going to be an eternal classic like the original, but I’m happy Woo didn’t even bother with trying to modernize that film. Going in a completely different direction with references to the past is much better than simply rehashing the same stories forever.
