Amazon.com Essentials:
This 1989 rouser is apocalyptic pulp--the bloodiest, showiest,
most shamelessly sentimental specimen of Hong Kong's gangster
melodramas. A torch singer named Jennie (Sally Yeh) is accidentally
blinded during a slaying in a night club, and Chow Yun-fat's sad-eyed
Jeff, a self-lacerating assassin, drags himself out of retirement to
take on one last job--rubbing out a major mobster for major bucks--so
he can pay for the singer's cornea transplant operation. But Jeff
pauses to ferry a wounded child to the hospital during this final
outing, and because of this a cop finally gets a good look at him: "He
was seen on the job," snarls a saturnine Mr. Big, "and I want him
wasted." Armies of thugs converge on the saintly slayer. Some of
writer-director John Woo's flourishes are kitsch classics (doves
flying upward in a candlelit church), while the action sequences are
rapturous. "Life's cheap," a character opines. "It only takes one
bullet," but in this case it actually takes about a dozen spewing
bullet hits to kill anyone, as soulful triads in mirror shades and
duster overcoats blaze away with high-tech weaponry. (A favorite trick
involves grasping an enemy by the lapels, pulling him into a waltz
embrace, and pumping several slugs into his duodenum.) Danny Lee,
Chow's costar in City
on Fire, is the intense, young officer who fixates on the
killer's contradictory personality. --David Chute
Amazon.com Essentials:
This 1989 rouser is apocalyptic pulp--the bloodiest, showiest,
most shamelessly sentimental specimen of Hong Kong's gangster
melodramas. A torch singer named Jennie (Sally Yeh) is accidentally
blinded during a slaying in a night club, and Chow Yun-fat's sad-eyed
Jeff, a self-lacerating assassin, drags himself out of retirement to
take on one last job--rubbing out a major mobster for major bucks--so
he can pay for the singer's cornea transplant operation. But Jeff
pauses to ferry a wounded child to the hospital during this final
outing, and because of this a cop finally gets a good look at him: "He
was seen on the job," snarls a saturnine Mr. Big, "and I want him
wasted." Armies of thugs converge on the saintly slayer. Some of
writer-director John Woo's flourishes are kitsch classics (doves
flying upward in a candlelit church), while the action sequences are
rapturous. "Life's cheap," a character opines. "It only takes one
bullet," but in this case it actually takes about a dozen spewing
bullet hits to kill anyone, as soulful triads in mirror shades and
duster overcoats blaze away with high-tech weaponry. (A favorite trick
involves grasping an enemy by the lapels, pulling him into a waltz
embrace, and pumping several slugs into his duodenum.) Danny Lee,
Chow's costar in City
on Fire, is the intense, young officer who fixates on the
killer's contradictory personality. --David Chute
Amazon.com Essentials:
The Killer
John Woo's 1989 Hong Kong action classic, a stylish, bullet-riddled
elegy to friendship under fire, firmly established him as the maestro
of mayhem. Superstar Chow Yun-fat, Asia's king of cool, plays the most
charming hit man ever (and yes, he only takes contracts on those who
deserve it), but when one of his killings leaves an innocent nightclub
singer (Sally Yeh) blinded, he dedicates his life to giving her back
her sight. Danny Lee is the cop on his tail, but the two adversaries
become unlikely comrades when the mob decides to cancel its debt to
Chow by taking him out, leading to a beautifully filmed and incredibly
violent confrontation. Woo places the showdown in a church and
punctuates the acrobatic gunfight with images of religious icons,
flying doves, and burning candles. An ode to Jean-Pierre Melville's
existential gangster classic Le Samourai, Woo's delirious mix of
melodrama and stylized action recalls the balletic bloodletting of Sam
Peckinpah, the elegant camerawork of Martin Scorsese, and the operatic,
larger-than-life grandeur of Sergio Leone. Woo's love of American
musicals (and his own background as a dance instructor) adds a touch of
grace to the fluid choreography of the action scenes. In terms of sheer
action, Woo topped himself a few years later with Hard-Boiled,
his Hong Kong swan song, but most critics still rate The Killer
as his masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker
Hard-Boiled
Masterful Hong Kong action director John Woo (The Killer,
Face/Off) turns in this exciting and pyrotechnic tale of warring
gangsters and shifting loyalties. Chow Yun-fat (The Replacement
Killers) plays a take-no-prisoners cop on the trail of the triad,
the Hong Kong Mafia, when his partner is killed during a gun battle.
His guilt propels him into an all-out war against the gang, including
an up-and-coming soldier in the mob (Tony Leung) who turns out to be an
undercover cop. The two men must come to terms with their allegiance to
the force and their loyalty to each other as they try to take down the
gangsters. A stunning feast of hyperbolic action sequences (including a
climactic sequence in an entire hospital taken hostage),
Hard-Boiled is a rare treat for fans of the action genre, with sequences
as thrilling and intense as any ever committed to film. --Robert
Lane
