LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE KILLER (1989) ****

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 29th, 2011)

John Woo’s The Killer features some of the best shootouts ever filmed. It also features one of the baddest badass performances in this history of the cinema, courtesy of Chow Yun Fat. When you think John Woo, it's hard not to think of Chow Yun Fat; and vice versa. And for good reason. Together, they made some of the greatest action movies mankind has ever conceived. As far as the most dynamic director-actor pairings of all time, they are right up there with Scorsese and De Niro in my book.

My two favorite Woo-Fat collaborations are The Killer and Hard Boiled. It’s hard for me to really say which one I like better. The Killer has the better story, while Hard Boiled has more insane action sequences. I may have to give the edge to Hard Boiled because it’s so over the top, but that in no way diminishes my love for this movie.

Fat plays a hitman who accidentally blinds a nightclub singer. He takes pity on her and accepts one last hit to pay for an operation to restore her sight. Meanwhile, cop Danny Lee is on his trail, but he’s got a hunch that there’s more to Fat than meets the eye. Eventually, the two team up to take down Fat’s sleazy employer.

Even though I may slightly prefer Hard Boiled over The Killer, I do have to say that in terms of performance, this is Fat’s finest hour. He’s terrific as the harmonica playing hitman with a heart of gold. He plays the romantic scenes with the blind chick almost like Cary Grant and he plays the action sequences as good as anyone in the genre. And the transition from one to the other is seamless.

Likewise, Woo is able to juggle the drama with the mind-numbingly awesome action perfectly. In a lesser director’s hands, the romantic scenes in The Killer would’ve easily veered into melodrama. Woo however is able to ground the relationship stuff nicely in reality while allowing the action scenes to escalate into the realm of amazingness.

Seriously, you don’t need me to sit here and tell you how wonderful a John Woo action sequence can be. You already know there will be tons of slow motion, freeze frames, scenes of guys with guns in each hand flying through the air, shots of flying doves, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition fired. Woo’s use of slow motion during the action scenes turns the mayhem into pure cinematic poetry. People often compare him to Sam Peckinpah and Arthur Penn in his use of slow motion, but with The Killer; Woo became a brand name all his own and in this reviewer’s opinion, far outshined the competition. What makes the sequences in The Killer special is that they serve the story, so that when they occur, it’s not gratuitous violence for gratuitous violence’s sake.

But the gratuitous violence is what makes the movie one of my favorites. In a regular action movie, when the hero gets double-crossed; the villain calls on four or five guys to finish him off. In a John Woo movie, the villain calls on twenty or thirty. I particularly love the scene where a bunch of henchmen descend on Fat’s apartment dressed in white jumpsuits. They all look like they just came from a painting party or something. I can almost picture the bad guy saying, “Stop painting my house and pick up a submachine gun! We’ve got to kill The Killer!”

The quieter moments in the film resonate just as much though. I really love the scene where Fat and Lee are holding guns on each other and the blind chick comes into the room. Of course she can’t see this, so she carries a conversation with them as if nothing is going on. Some directors would’ve made this scene seem like a bad sitcom moment, but Woo manages to make it playful, yet still suspenseful. (I could’ve done without the scenes where Fat and Lee call each other “Mickey Mouse” and “Dumbo” though.)

Then there’s the downbeat ending. I won’t spoil it for anyone who’s not seen the film, but be prepared to be depressed. You won’t see that shit in a Hollywood movie; that’s for sure. Still, it works beautifully and is a perfect (albeit sad) note to end the movie on.

AKA: Blast Killer. AKA: Bloodshed of Two Heroes.