It’s been more than 30 years since John Woo first came to Hollywood, and it often feels like he’s been searching for a way back to Hong Kong ever since—or at least a way back to the legendary action filmmaker he was when he worked there in the ’80s and early ’90s. Woo’s elevated style, which orgiastically mixed the muted cool of a Jean-Pierre Melville neo-noir with the explosive melodrama of a Martin Scorsese crime epic and the flowery grandiosity of a Chinese opera, clashed with the sober ethos of American blockbusters (“Face/Off” remains a crucial exception, largely because its story was as highfalutin’ as the way Woo chose to tell it). The same ecstasy that characterized Cantonese-language classics like “Hard Boiled” and “A Better Tomorrow” felt more like self-parody when translated into “Mission: Impossible 2,” and last year’s horribly generic “Silent Night” suggested that Woo had lost whatever was left of his voice as an artist.
Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly filled with confidence when it was first announced that Woo was planning to direct a remake of The Killer (arguably his most famous Hong Kong film) for Universal Pictures, and the sinking feeling in my stomach only grew when I learned that the film would premiere directly on Peacock. The project seemed destined to illustrate Woo’s decline in the saddest and most damning way possible; an all-too-fitting death knell for a director who has spent decades chasing his own shadow.
When I sat down to stream the thing, I had little hope that it observablenot to mention a creative renaissance that fulfilled the vague promise of 2017’s Manhunt. I had no reason to believe it would be Woo’s most satisfying film of the millennium, or that its rewatch would finally inspire him to create something new. But that’s the beauty of life, isn’t it? Sometimes God is there so quickly – even in the most desecrated of churches.
Will The Killer (2024) be remembered with the same reverence as its namesake? Of course not. It probably won’t even be remembered with the same reverence as The Killer (2023). But this entertaining and delightfully self-possessed August surprise is under no illusions. In fact, the film works so well—and remains so light-hearted—because it eschews the life-or-death burden of Woo’s original, focusing instead on the unbridled joy of resurrection. Wrapped in shiny tinsel where the 1989 film was covered in the blood of Christ, this remake doesn’t shy away from the sheer religiosity of its source material, but it’s so happy for the chance to be reborn that even Woo’s most devoted fans might forget the cross it has to bear.
And they have to if they want to enjoy how screenwriters Josh Campbell, Brian Helgeland and Matt Stuecken have reinterpreted Woo’s story about a disillusioned hitman who develops romantic feelings for the lounge singer he accidentally blinded on his last job – and bromantic feelings for the detective hot on his heels. Trading honorable tragedy for the lightness of action comedy and the neon hype of British Hong Kong for the gleaming glitz of Olympic-ready Paris, this new version of The Killer often seems to owe less to Cruel Intentions and Scorsese than to Amélie and Luc Besson. Purists may shudder at the change in tone, but it fits perfectly with the spirit of a director less concerned with recapturing the glory of his best work than with rediscovering the joy of a job well done.
Zee could certainly understand the appeal of this approach. Played by Nathalie Emmanuel (a little wooden at first, but gradually warming to her gender-swapped take on a role invented by Chow Yun-fat), Paris’ elusive assassin insists she never tires of doing something right, but the inherent wrongness of her job slowly begins to weigh on her. “Do you deserve this death?” she asks her boss (an overly Irish Sam Worthington) every time he gives her a new assignment, and his reassurance has always been enough to keep her going. When she’s tasked with taking out an entire nightclub, however, Zee can’t bring herself to kill the beautiful Song Thrush (Diana Silvers as Jenn), who loses her sight in the crossfire.
The decision to protect Jenn ends up making Zee a target herself. On one hand, her boss is determined to tie up loose ends (there’s a largely irrelevant connection involving $350 million worth of stolen heroin). On the other hand, local detective Sey (the charming French superstar Omar Sy) is equally determined to catch the killer behind the nightclub massacre, hoping that will lead him to the people who ordered it. John Woo fans will be shocked to learn that it all culminates in the half-abandoned church where Zee always hangs out – you know, the one that’s full of birds that always fly around in slow motion.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a handful of surprises along the way. “The Killer” doesn’t deviate to far from the general structure of the original, but it puts such a different pressure on every beat that it feels like a different movie entirely. The scenes between Zee and Sey are brought to life by a flirtatious charge and kept alive by a tongue-in-cheek energy that would have made it impossible for that film to maintain the undercurrent of stoic tragedy that the 1989 version carried. Meanwhile, the relationship between Zee and Julia is much gentler than the one it was modeled on, even if it’s too underplayed to do anything meaningful with the sisterhood of fallen angels she finds (Silvers’ thankless role doesn’t leave her much to do except blink into space and hope no one shoots her).
But this isn’t really a movie about, how do you say it in French… ideas. This is a movie about Emmanuel strutting in slow motion outside Jenn’s nightclub as smoke rises from the streets behind her, and how cool it is when she survives a strip search for hiding a deconstructed sword in her dress. This is a movie about Zee and Sey posing in a Mexican standoff with Jenn perfectly positioned in a wheelchair between them. This is a movie about the rollicking split-screen Woo introduces in scenes with the improvisational joy of free jazz (all the better for softening the story), and the dope saxophone Marco Beltrami’s score brings. actually Jazz in the middle of a wildly staged shootout in the hospital (to celebrate the fun of the game even more).
The action scenes could be more numerous, and the ones we get are certainly not marked by the same level of ambition as some of Woo’s earlier Hospital shootouts are so explosive, but there’s a clear thought behind every bullet fired, and the grand finale is choreographed with such religious glee that you can almost feel Woo’s faith in his own cinema being restored in real time. It’s not our place to say every death is deserved, but all are so beautifully executed that it’s easy to forgive the unnecessary backstories behind them, just as it’s easy to forget that Woo hasn’t worked at this level in ages. Just like Zee, he just needed to remember that no matter what past sins you’ve committed, it’s never too late to find God again.
Grade: B
“The Killer” is now streaming on Peacock.
