The Big Picture

John Woo’s film
The Killer
defined the “heroic bloodshed” genre, blending violence and melodrama in a new cinematic language.
The film broke ground by embracing the tragic demise of the hero, unlike mainstream Hollywood movies in the ’80s.

The Killer
‘s critical acclaim worldwide led Woo to Hollywood, influencing American action films in the ’90s and beyond.

Hollywood in the ‘80s was largely dominated by the testosterone-driven pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. As the matinee idols of the decade, their seminal hits were loaded with bullets, explosions, and almost no time to express any level of human sensitivity. Simultaneously, the Hong Kong movie scene saw its biggest box office through the drawing power of Jackie Chan’s martial arts action comedies. Before the end of the decade, however, John Woo’s The Killer made the biggest mark on action pictures.

The 1989 Hong Kong crime thriller was Woo’s third collaboration with former soap opera star Chow Yun-fat. The pair first teamed up on 1986’s A Better Tomorrow, which not only transitioned Woo out of martial arts period movies and comedies but also turned Yun-fat into a cultural icon for his portrayal as slick Tria- heavy Mark Gor. After facing creative differences with producer Tsui Hark during the production of A Better Tomorrow II in 1987, Woo felt determined to make a movie that emphasized his values of friendship and honor. Though The Killer was met with limited success in Hong Kong in 1989, various filmmakers in the West, including Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, cited the picture’s influence on their careers, making it a seminal piece in Woo’s filmography.

The Killer (1989) In this Hong Kong action thriller, a disillusioned assassin takes on one last job to help a singer he accidentally blinded. As he navigates a world of betrayal and violence, he forms an uneasy alliance with a determined cop intent on bringing him to justice. Release Date March 24, 1989 Cast Chow Yun-Fat , Danny Lee , Sally Yeh , Kong Chu , Kenneth Tsang , Fui-On Shing , Wing-Cho Yip , Ricky Wong Chun-Tong Runtime 111 Minutes

Woo cited celebrated filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Jean-Pierre Melville as the reasons he got involved in movies. In the case of The Killer, Woo was primarily inspired by Melville’s 1967 neo-noir Le Samouraï starring Alain Delon. Much like the French thriller, The Killer is about the intertwining lives of professional hitman Ah Jong (Yun-fat) and the Dirty Harry-esque Hong Kong Detective Ying (Danny Lee). Jong eyes retirement when he accidentally blinds a beautiful singer (Sally Yeh) and takes one last job from a Triad gang to pay for her operation.

Ying investigates the killings committed by Jong as he increasingly finds himself relating to the hitman’s sympathetic nature. When the Triads turn on Jong, the hitman and Ying develop an unlikely alliance to take their enemies on and ensure the singer gets her eye operation. From this point on, the opposing sides of morality blur as The Killer’s Jong and Ying discover a common trait of honor.

‘The Killer’ Defined The Heroic Bloodshed Genre
Image via Golden Princess Film Production

Whether it is Stallone in Cobra or Schwarzenegger in Commando, the action movies of the 80s were clear-cut in their depiction of good versus evil, with the flawless hero ultimately overcoming the odds. However, the combination of violence and melodrama in Woo’s pictures began a new action subgenre called “heroic bloodshed.” Woo had already broken ground with his cop and gangster protagonists in A Better Tomorrow. Yet, with full creative control of The Killer, thanks to funding from stars Yun-fat and Lee, Woo was able to formulate a brand new cinematic language through the duality theme.

Like many Woo pictures of the time, The Killer featured the filmmaker’s signature gun fu style. Among his cinematic traits include ballet-like gunfights with duel-wielding pistols, slow motion shots to capture the grace and often irony of the sequence, and the use of the “Mexican standoff” between the protagonists and the antagonists. Woo’s dance-of-death style of action carried over into Western cinema in the ‘90s with Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Rodriguez’s El Mariachi trilogy, and the Wachowskis’ The Matrix franchise.

Where the “heroic bloodshed” aspect of The Killer comes full circle is the church shootout between Jong and Ying against the Triads. Beyond the physical danger of the sequence, this is the moment where Woo thrives in his use of religious symbolism. As a man of deep faith, Woo initially sets up Yung-fat’s Jong as a man of sin, seeking acceptance from a higher power. His final battle sequence was the first use of white doves representing the loss of lives of the characters, a trait later carried over in the majority of Woo’s subsequent filmography.

The Killer also dared to make a narrative decision that most mainstream Hollywood movies tried to avoid in the feel-good ‘80s: The tragic demise of the hero. Despite Jong’s selfless nature to save his beloved singer, the assassin meets a fatal karma when the Triad boss blinds him with a gunshot to the face. Though Ying shoots the main antagonist dead, he loses his job and his freedom at the expense of avenging his unlikely friend. While Woo took similar risks in later pictures such as Bullet in the Head and Hard-Boiled, the death of the hero was not fully embraced in the West until recent era blockbusters, as evidenced in Avengers: Endgame and John Wick: Chapter 4.

‘The Killer’ Brought John Woo And His Peers To America

Despite his previous success with A Better Tomorrow, Woo’s The Killer was a commercial disappointment in Hong Kong upon release in 1989 due to the graphic violence mirroring the Tiananmen Square massacre. The event was a student-led demonstration in Beijing, China, resulting in martial law being declared by the Chinese government. However, the picture thrived in Western film festivals such as the Toronto Film Festival, Cannes, and Sundance. The critical acclaim of The Killer worldwide for its innovative style and melodramatic storytelling was an important breakthrough into Hollywood not only for Woo but also for his peers, Hark and City on Fire’s Ringo Lam.

As more American action pictures paid homage to The Killer throughout the ‘90s, Woo brought his voice to Hollywood with such hits as Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible 2. All three pictures retained the duality between the two men while blending Woo’s values with escapist Hollywood entertainment. Additionally, Hollywood’s fascination with The Killer led to multiple attempts to shoot an American version of the Woo classic since the early ‘90s. Most notably, Deadwood’s Walter Hill was at one time attached to direct the unproduced remake with Richard Gere as Jong and Denzel Washington as Ying.

Now, 35 years after its release, The Killer remains Woo’s breakout masterpiece to action movie fans around the world and continues to influence generations of filmmakers working in the genre today. At age 77, Woo’s career comes full circle as the master of the heroic bloodshed picture will be releasing his American reimagining of The Killer for Peacock. While retaining the premise of the original, the movie stars Fast & Furious franchise star Nathalie Emmanuel in the title role opposite Lupin’s Omar Sy as her cop nemesis.

The Killer (1989) In this Hong Kong action thriller, a disillusioned assassin takes on one last job to help a singer he accidentally blinded. As he navigates a world of betrayal and violence, he forms an uneasy alliance with a determined cop intent on bringing him to justice. Release Date March 24, 1989 Cast Chow Yun-Fat , Danny Lee , Sally Yeh , Kong Chu , Kenneth Tsang , Fui-On Shing , Wing-Cho Yip , Ricky Wong Chun-Tong Runtime 111 Minutes

The Killer is available for purchase on Amazon in the U.S.

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