User:Andrzejbanas/TheKiller

The Killer
Directed by	John Woo
Written by	John Woo
Produced by	Tsui Hark
Starring	Chow Yun-Fat Danny Lee Sally Yeh Kenneth Tsang Paul Chu Kong
Cinematography	Peter Pau Wong Wing-Hung
Edited by	Fan Kung Ming
Music by	Lowell Lo
Release dates	Hong Kong: July 6, 1989
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese

The Killer (Chinese: 喋血雙雄; pinyin: Diéxuè shuāngxióng)^† is a 1989 Hong Kong action and crime film directed and written by John Woo. The film stars Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee, and Sally Yeh. Chow plays the assassin Ah Jong, who accidentally hurts the eyes of the singer Jenny (Sally Yeh) during a shootout. He later discovers that if Jenny does not have an expensive operation soon, she will go blind. To get the money for Jenny, Jeff decides to perform one last hit. Meanwhile, the police detective Li (Danny Lee) who has been tracking Ah Jong for a long time, is determined to bring him to justice.

After the financial backing from Tsui Hark became problematic following the release of Woo's film A Better Tomorrow 2, Woo had to find backing through Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee's backing companies. Woo went into filming The Killer with a rough draft that was influenced by the films Le Samouraï, Mean Streets, and Narazumono. Woo desired to make a film about honour and friendship and the relationship of two seemingly opposite people as a tribute to directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Martin Scorsese.

The Killer was not an immediate success in Hong Kong, but received great critical acclaim in the Western world with critics praising the action scenes and its over the top style. The film became Woo's stepping stone to make Hollywood films and has been a strong influence on many directors including Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Johnnie To.

Plot

In Hong Kong, an assassin named Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) gets a mission to go out on one last hit. During this hit Ah Jong accidentally blinds a young nightclub singer named Jennie (Sally Yeh) with the muzzle flash from his pistol. Driven to help the now near-blinded woman by securing money for a sight-saving corneal transplant, he agrees to carry out another hit. Ah Jong completes the hit and is spotted by the police detective Li Ying (Danny Lee Sau-Yin). As Ah Jong escapes Li at a far away beach, he is double-crossed by the traids who hired him, who have ordered him to be killed. In Ah Jong's escape from his assassins, a young child is hurt by a stray bullet. Ah Jong takes the child to the hospital while Li follows in pursuit. Ah Jong manages to escape Li and have the child arrive at the hospital safely.

Li becomes obsessed with Ah Jong's action of saving the child from the shootout. Li and his partner Sgt. Tsang (Kenneth Tsang) finds out that Jennie has been visited by Ah Jong and plans to capture Ah Jong the next time he visits Jennie's apartment. Ah Jong arrives and manages to scramble away from Li's ambush. Li and Tsang explain to Jennie that Ah Jong was the assassin at the nightclub. Ah Jong has a meeting with his manager Fung Sei (Paul Chu Kong) who had set him up for his previous mission. Ah Jong demands payment but finds that the meeting is another ambush which ends with Ah Jong killing several hit men and leaving Fung Sei alive.

Li begins to close-in on the whereabouts of Ah Jong after information from Tsang. Tsang had followed gangsters who were chasing Fung Sei to his home as he had not killed Ah Jong. Tsang dies after revealing to Li the location. At Fung Sei's home, Ah Jong arrives as they have made amends earlier due to their friendship. Fung Sei had left Ah Jong a large stock pile of weaponry when the house is first attacked by Li and then a group of Triads. Li and Ah Jong escape and while healing Ah Jong's wounds find themselves bonding and relating to each other. Li, Ah Jong and Jennie wait in a church for Fung Sei to return with Ah Jong's money. Ah Jong arrives with the money, horribly beaten by gangsters who have followed him. A bloody shootout among the men ends with a Mexican standoff between the leader of the triads, Wong Hoi (Shing Fui-On) who has Jennie and Ah Jong and Li. Ah Jong manages to shoot Wong but Wong is able to return a shot which kills Ah Jong. A police squadron arrives with Wong begging to be taken into custody. Li approaches Wong and fatally shoots him.

Cast

• Chow Yun-Fat as Ah Jong. Ah Jong is an assassin who accidentally blinds singer Jenny on a mission. Ah Jong decides to take on one last mission to pay for surgery to repair her eyes. Ah Jong is called John and Jeff in some subtitled prints of the film. The nickname given to Ah Jong by Li is Ah B which roughly translates to baby or kid. In some dubbed and subtitled prints, his nickname is Dumbo or Butthead.
• Danny Lee as Insp. Li Ying. Li works with his partner Tsang to find Ah Jong. After his first meeting with him, Li becomes more obsessed with Ah Jong's morals and character. The nickname given to Li by Ah Jong is "Hau Tau" which roughly translates as "Shrimp head". In some dubbed and subtitled prints, his nickname is Mickey Mouse or Numbnuts.
• Sally Yeh as Jenny. Jenny is a nightclub singer who is blinded by Ah Jong in a shootout. Jenny falls in love with Ah Jong not realizing his real profession as a killer.
• Kenneth Tsang as Sgt. Tsang Yeh: Tsang is Li's police partner. Tsang helps find the whereabouts of Fung Sei which will lead Li to Ah Jong.
• Paul Chu Kong as Fung Sei: Fung Sei is Ah Jong's manager and close friend. After Ah Jong is spotted on a hit, he is ordered to kill Ah Jong.

Themes

Woo has described The Killer as being about "honour and friendship", "trying to find out if there is something common between two people" and as a "romantic poem". The structure of the film follows two men on the opposite side of the law who find a relation to each other in their opposition of a greater evil. Li and Ah Jong's relationship was influenced by the Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad Magazine. Woo recalled "When I was young I was fascinated with the cartoon–I love it very much...the white bird and the black bird are always against each other, but deep in their heart, they are still friendly, and the idea came from that." Woo use the characters of Ah Jong and Li in the film as a central moftif to illustrate moral points. Scenes with this reflective doubling include the hospital sequence with Li and Ah Jong on opposite sides of a hospital hall and in the final battle scene where Li and Ah Jong are in a standoff with Wong. The focus on male friendships in Woo's film have been interpreted as homoerotic. Woo has responded to these statements stating "People will bring their own preconceptions to a movie...If they see something in The Killer that they consider to be homoerotic than that their privilege. It's certainly not intentional."

Woo's re-occurring symbol of white doves was first used in The Killer.

Woo is a Christian and instills his films with religious imagery while stating that The Killer is "not a religious film". In the opening of The Killer, Ah Jong is found in a church stating he enjoys the "tranquility". Ah Jong is later found in the church again getting several slugs pulled out of his back showing his intense pain while the altar and crucifix are shown prominently behind him. The idea of the church was influenced by the use of the church in Martin Scorsese's film Mean Streets. Woo stated the church was used to state that "God is welcoming, no matter if it's a good or a bad man, everyone is welcome".

John Woo used animals as symbols in The Killer. The church is filled with many doves and pigeons. Woo uses doves to represent the spirits of the people. This was the first film where Woo used the dove symbolism and has used them to similar effect in Hard Target and Face/Off. A cat is also used in The Killer with Ah Jong's first meeting Jenny on her first visit home with Ah Jong, and secondarily with Li's partner Chang tries to catch Ah Jong in Jenny's apartment. In Chinese culture, a sign of a cat coming into a home symbolizes an omen of ruin and poverty for its habitants. Both Chang and Jenny meet negative outcomes in the film.

Production

Pre-production

The Killer was director John Woo's follow-up to A Better Tomorrow 2 which was released in 1987. The first cut of A Better Tomorrow 2 was too long for the studio. The film was edited within a week separately by both producer Tsui Hark and Woo. According to producer Terence Chang, Tsui Hark felt that John Woo ruined A Better Tomorrow 2 and asked Chang to fire Woo from the studio. When Chang refused, Hark began rejecting Woo's new film ideas, including ideas that would later be created as Bullet in the Head and Once a Thief. When Woo proposed the story of The Killer to Tsui Hark, it was denied as Tsui responded that "[n]obody wants to see a film about a killer".

The Killer was not going to be filmed until actor Chow Yun Fat stepped in. Chow had worked previously with Woo on the two A Better Tomorrow films. Chow had the company he was contracted with, Golden Princess Film fund part of the project. Woo wanted Danny Lee to play the role of cop in the film. Lee was under an exclusive contract with Cinema City and was only able to work on The Killer if his production company Magnum was involved. John Woo approached Sally Yeh telling her that he has a film with an important female character. Yeh was friends with Woo and was currently contracted with Tsui Hark and accepted the role. Yeh felt that she did not give her best performance for the role. The supporting roles were filled out by friends of the actors and director. Paul Chu Kong was a friend of Chow Yun Fat who had entered retirement and returned to acting in The Killer as a favor to his friend Chow Yun Fat. Two of Woo's close friends joined the cast: actor Kenneth Tsang and screenwriter Barry Wong. Wong Wing-Hang was hired to be the director of photography for The Killer. Wong had to leave the set for an extended period of time which led to Peter Pau to be brought in to shoot the rest of the film.

Filming

Woo had over 90 days to shoot The Killer, which was nearly double the amount of time that the average Hong Kong film was shot in the late 1980s. Woo went into filming The Killer with only a short treatment for the film and wrote the details of the script while filming. During promotion periods for The Killer, Woo described the film as a tribute to Martin Scorsese and French director Jean-Pierre Melville. Woo cites Melville's Le Samouraï as an influence on the story of The Killer. Le Samouraï story involves a professional assassin named Jef Costello (Alain Delon) who successfully kills a nightclub owner. Costello later find that his shadowy employer takes out a contract on him. Woo borrows plot elements form the film including the set-up where Jef enters a nightclub and looks at the female singer on entering the music lounge. Woo also described the influence of a Japanese film Narazumono about a killer (Ken Takakura) who only killed bad people. When a mob tricks him into killing an innocent person and he swears revenge. Takakura's character meets a women who has tuberculosis who wants to go home. The killer promises the women that he will take her home after after getting his revenge.

The scene where Danny Lee chases a gunman onto a tram was filmed in Causeway Bay. The film crew only had three hours to film this chase scene. Residents thought it was a real gunfight and phoned the police. When the police arrived, Danny Lee had to talk to the superintendent so they could continue filming. Scenes of the Dragon Boat festival were shot months apart. The first footage was was simply of the boat races and rest of the footage involving the actors was shot months later. Boats were meant to flipped over during the boat chase, but the boat owners refused to allow this as they felt it would bring bad luck. The scene at the airport were filmed filmed at the Kai Tak Airport. The scenes at Paul Chu Kong's characters house were filmed at Stanley, Hong Kong. John Woo wanted this house to be by a beach, but such a location could not be found. The action scene in at this house took 28 days to shoot. The final action scene was shot at a remote building made to look like a church while the exterior seen from Ah Jong's apartment is a real church. The final action scene at mock-church took 36 days to shoot. The original ending of the film involved Jennie waiting at an airport when Li appears to give her the money to go to the United States with her. Due to Sally Yeh's tight filming schedule this scene was not filmed and replaced with an ending of Ah Jong playing the Harmonica.

Music

Tsui and Woo often disagreed to musical aspects of the film. For the opening scene, Woo wanted the singer to perform a jazz song and have the killer playing a saxophone. Tsui rejected this idea as he felt that the Hong Kong audiences did not understand or like jazz that much. Woo stated that he "had to change it to a Chinese song, the kind of song they always use in Hong Kong movies." Actress Sally Yeh who performed the Cantopop songs did not feel they were appropriate for the film. The songs were requested by the studio written specifically for The Killer.

The film's music was composed by Lowell Lo and edited by David Wu. A reoccurring musical theme is a haunting is a haunting vibraphone theme which is first heard over the opening credits. The harmonica motif in the film was influenced by the soundtracks of Ennio Morricone. Lowell was influenced by the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in America as well as stating he used a bottle blower to give the music a haunting effect. David Wu said the influence of the Harmonica music in Sergio Leone's western films was a strong influence on his work. During the final action scene when the statue of the Virgin Mary is destroyed, the action music transitions to "Hallelujah" from Messiah by George Frideric Handel. This was the idea of editor David Wu who felt that it would beak up the numbing effect of the kinetic violence.

Release

The Killer was first released in Taiwan in March 1989 with a running time of 124 minutes. It was then cut to its regular running time of 110 minutes and released in Hong Kong in July 1989. Woo felt that the 110 minute cut of the film was "much better". The film was not an immediate success in Hong Kong due to the Tiananmen Square massacre. The film was a success in Hong Kong grossing $18,255,083 and reached ninth highest position at the end of the year box office. At the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards, the film won for Best Director (John Woo) and Best Editing (Fan Kung Ming) and was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Paul Chu Kong), Best Screenplay (Woo) and Best Cinematography (Wong Wing Hang and Peter Pau). The Killer was popular in Korea taking seventh highest place in the year end box office receipts.

The Killer premiered at several film festivals outside Asia. The film premiered in North America at the in 1989 at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada. In 1990 the film was shown at both Sundance Film Festival in the United States and the Cannes Film Festival in France. Film producer Terence Chang suggested that The Killer's success around the world made several Hong Kong filmmakers jealous: "It created a certain kind of resentment in the Hong Kong film industry. One thing I can say for sure is, the American, European, Japanese, Korean and even the Taiwanese audiences and critics appreciated The Killer a lot more than it was in Hong Kong"

Home media

The Killer was released in the United States on VHS by Fox Lorber in November 1992 in both a dubbed and subtitled version. The Killer was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection on April 1, 1998 in the original Cantonese language track with English subtitles. Bonus features on DVD included the trailer, production notes, and a commentary track. Woo was very happy with the film being included in the Criterion Collection, stating "it was great because it would let people know what [The Killer and Hard Boiled] are about...when I saw that Criterion Collection selected The Killer, I was very happy as The Killer and Bullet in the Head are my two favourites".

On Oct 3, 2000 Fox Lorber released a DVD of The Killer with both an English and Cantonese audio. Bonus features included an audio commentary with John Woo and film trailers. This Fox Lorber disc was also included with two disc DVD collection which included the film Hard Boiled. Both the Fox Lorber and Criterion DVDs are out of print. On March 30, 2010 The Killer was released by the Dragon Dynasty label on two-disc DVD and Blu-Ray. Bonus features included were interviews with John Woo, a location guide and a trailer gallery. In the United Kingdom, The Killer was released on DVD by Hong Kong Legends in 2002. Bonus features include an audio commentary with Bey Logan and interviews with Kenneth Tsang, Sally Yeh and cinematographer Peter Pau.

Reception

Critical response

The Killer received critical acclaim on its initial release outside Hong Kong with critics focusing their praise on the action scenes in the film. Stephen Holden of The New York Times referred to the film as "Alternately gripping and laughable" and that "The scenes of gore and destruction are even more spectacular than Hong Kong's fog-shrouded skyline". Variety gave a positive review, describing the film as a "extremely violent and superbly made actioner demonstrates the tight grasp that director John Woo has on the crime meller genre". Kathleen Maher of The Austin Chronicle praised the film stating that it "defies all categorization but demands comparisons, if only to prove that there's never been anything like this before." Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a positive review, describing the film as "like eating popcorn, but it's not just any old brand; it's escape-velocity popcorn, popcorn with a slurp of rocket fuel...[Woo's] ideas overreach themselves with such a virile swagger that they border on comedy. With excess like this you can't help but laugh. This is a rush of a movie". The Christian Science Monitor gave the film a mixed review, stating that "This violent Hong Kong thriller has more psychological depth than most of its kind, but ultimately seems like a pointless exercise in style".

Remake

In 1992, American director and writer Walter Hill wrote a screenplay titled The Killer, Based on the Hong Kong Action Film by John Woo that was dated April 6, 1992. A year later, screenwriters Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. were hired by producers Charles Roven and Robert Cavallo to write a screenplay based on The Killer for Tri-Star Pictures. The press release of this remake stated the script was written for actors Richard Gere and Denzel Washington. In June 1992, it was announced Walter Hill and David Giler were writing a script titled Hong Kong based on The Killer with Hill directing. The producers had difficulty with the relationship between two main characters in the script as they felt that American audiences would interpret it as a homoerotic one. Producer Terence Chang, who worked with Woo on several productions, suggested to the American producers to have Hong Kong actress Michelle Yeoh play the role of the police officer to resolve any homoerotic reading of the film. A third draft of the script was released by August 23, 1993 which featured a story of a Caucasian hitman living in Hong Kong. This screenplay moved the focus from the pairing the hit man and the police detective characters to the characters of blinded night club singer and the hit man.

In October 2007, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a remake of The Killer was announced with American-Korean director John H. Lee directing. The remake would take place in Los Angeles's Koreatown, Chinatown and South Central. Lee was stated that The Killer is one of his favourite films and that he is excited to make his own version of the film.

Legacy

I went to the movies to see John Woo's The Killer. Damn. I wish we had more money for squib effects (bullet hits).

Director Robert Rodriguez before production on El Mariachi (1992)

The Killer is an important and influential film for both Western and Asian filmmakers. Film scholars have noted the similarities between Woo's style and The Killer with the films Nikita (1990) and Léon (1994) directed by French director Luc Besson. Kenneth E. Hall described Léon as having the similar character configuration of a hitman and the person he protects. In Nikita, the main character's crisis of conscience after performing a number of hits is also seen in The Killer. Lucy Mazdon described the style of Nikita as recalling "the work of directors like John Woo. Like Nikita, Woo's films show alienated and often brutal characters and graphic violence". In the United States, directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino developed films that were influenced by The Killer. Rodriguez's films El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995) contain stylistic homages to The Killer. In the film Jackie Brown, Tarantino wrote dialog referencing The Killer. No references to the film are made in the original novel. Asian based directors were also influenced by the film. Hong Kong director Johnnie To borrows from The Killer's gunfighting style, oppositional character pairing, and parody in his films A Hero Never Dies, Running Out of Time, and Fulltime Killer.

The Killer was also influential on hip hop music. American hip hop aritst Raekwon released his critically praised debut album Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… (1995) that sampled large amounts of the dialog from the film. RZA, the producer of the album described the albums themes by stating that "Rae and Ghost was two opposite guys as far as neighborhoods was concerned, I used John Woo's The Killer. [In that movie] you got Chow Yun Fat [playing the role of Ah Jong] and Danny Lee [Inspector Li]. They have to become partners to work shit out." Woo felt honored that the group sampled The Killer and asked for no monitory return from them. In 2005, Vibe magazine placed The Killer at number 20 on their list of top fifty films that shaped hip hop.

Notes

• ^ ^† This Cantonese title Dip huet seung hung directly translates as A Pair of Blood-Splattering Heroes.

References

• Elder, Robert K. (2005). John Woo Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1578067766. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
• Hall, Kenneth E. (1999). John Woo: The Films. McFarland. ISBN 0786406194.
• Hall, Kenneth E. (2009). John Woo's The Killer. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9789622099562. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
• Heard, Christopher (1999). Ten Thousand Bullets: The Cinematic Journey of John Woo. Doubleday Canada. ISBN 0-385-25731-7.
• Mazdon, Lucy (2000). Encore Hollywood: Remaking French Cinema. BFI. ISBN 0851708005.
• Morton, Lisa (2009). The Cinema of Tsui Hark. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786444601. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
• Rodriguez, Robert (1995). Rebel Without a Crew. Plume. ISBN 9780452271876. Retrieved May 15, 2010.
• Yau, Esther C. M. (2001). At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816632359.

External links

• The Killer at AllMovie
• The Killer at the Hong Kong Movie DataBase
• The Killer at IMDb
• The Killer at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Killer at the TCM Movie Database