Read @ Joe’s

Title: The Killer (2024) Director: John Woo Writer: John Woo // Brian Helgeland // Josh Campbell Studio: A Better Tomorrow Films // Universal IMDb Plot: An assassin tries to make amends in an effort to restore the sight of a beautiful young singer. Joe Says: The Killer looks slick with kinetic camera movements, in-your-face stunts, explosions a-go-go, and plenty of slo-mo doves but is both a little too convenient and mood-breakingly corny.

John Woo spent most of the 70s as a go-to Hong Kong director for general studio offerings before blasting his way into the hard action genre with A Better Tomorrow (1986). He followed that hit with a sequel and then, before the decade closed, wrote and directed The Killer (1989) – a film that would explode internationally, forever popularizing Woo and star Chow Yun-Fat, while instigating a new breed of hyper-violent Hong Kong action movies.

With The Killer (1989), Woo introduced assassin-with-morals Ah Jong (Chow) and his frenemy, Inspector Lee Ying (Danny Lee). After accidentally blinding a singer while performing a job, Ah Jong decides he wants out. The Triads want him dead. And Lee wants him arrested. The bullet-riddled and blood-soaked finale takes place in an abandoned church where Jong and Lee work together to take down an army of Triad soldiers while doves fly by in slow-mo. The Killer is epic and classic. The movie is also a little too convenient in plot and cornball in its situational dialogue.

Fast forward 35 years and John Woo returns to The Killer. This time, the movie is reimagined in Paris and the assassin-with-a-code is Nathalie Emmanuel who plays Zee. Directed by Woo, The Killer is co-written by Brian Helgeland, who has an impressive Hollywood resume, including an Oscar for LA Confidential. Helgeland keeps the high point beats intact: the abandoned church, a blinded signer, and a cop on the hunt (the always-delightful Omar Sy). Helgeland and Woo update the story, and provide it with a modern-day heft complete with backstory, criminal underpinnings, and an origin tale for Zee, much of it told through hip, split-screen perspectives. Yet, like the original, The Killer is both a little too convenient and mood-breakingly corny.

The update opens with Zee massacring drug runners with a samurai sword. During which, Jenn, a singer (Diana Silvers), is blinded. Zee, seeing a spark of herself within Jenn, decides to spare her life. The resulting consequences bring her in conflict with her ne’er-do-well handler, Finn (Sam Worthington and his Irish brogue), and Inspector Sey, who is also after the drugs and their owner, a corrupt Arab prince (Saïd Taghmaoui).

With those thirty-five years between the releases, Woo has directed a host of movies – both high-end hits and Hollywood flops. His craft has increased, as has the industry’s, but Woo can still stage that one, cool shot. The Killer looks slick with kinetic camera movements, in-your-face stunts, explosions a-go-go, and plenty of slo-mo doves. Emmanuel’s Zee and Sy’s Sey share a mutual respect for each other while bonding over (English language) crosswords (in a newspaper – not an app). Other than a few clever asides, this respect does not quite advance into the bromance between Jong and Lee, bordering instead on the convenient and the silly. 

Convenience and genre-stylings aside, the determinant of The Killer is its fantasy-lite feel. Zee can do no wrong. She is perennially in the right place with a dead-on aim. Sey smiles and jokes and ambles about in a casual manner more suited to his Lupin Netflix series than in a hard-boiled (ahem) John Woo actioneer. And yes, Woo delivers the action, with long sequences in a tight club, an open church, and a sterile hospital. Yet throughout it all, these scenes feel video-game safe and present no pressure of life-and-death outcomes for the faces on the poster. This is a made-for-Peacock streamer with a guaranteed happy ending.

Not so for the original. At least not for Jong or, potentially, Lee. However, remarkably, the IP gets to live on. For a light, Friday night action movie, John Woo’s remake is a killer of a good-old shoot-‘em-up.