John Woo’s The Killer is a landmark film of Hong Kong’s golden age of action crime cinema and one of the defining works of the “Heroic Bloodshed” genre, a style characterized by balletic gunfights, emotional storytelling, and recurring themes of brotherhood, loyalty, and honor. The genre first emerged with Woo’s A Better Tomorrow in 1986 and flourished throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Ah Jong (Chow Yun-fat), a seasoned hitman, plans to retire after one final job. During that job, while in the midst of a shootout with the gangsters, he accidentally blinds a nightclub singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh), when his gun fires too close to her eyes, causing him profound regret. Consequently, he watches over her and develops a strong bond with her, and the two fall in love—all while Jennie has no idea that he is to blame for her blindness. He promises her eye surgery and, to pay for it, takes on the job of killing a high-ranking Triad boss as his final task from his friend and handler, Fung Sei (Chu Kong). However, things turn sour when his employers betray him, regard him as a liability, and seek his death, while a dedicated and righteous cop, Inspector Li Yang (Danny Lee), is also on his trail. As he tries to redeem himself in an increasingly violent world, Ah Jong must face the merciless criminals, ensure Jennie’s safety, and navigate his relationship with Inspector Li Yang.
The first half of the film, with the hitman Ah Jong’s employers betraying him and wanting him dead, him falling in love with a singer to the point of risking his life for her, and him wanting the money to escape the life of crime, feels inspired by Jean Pierre Melville’s 1967 masterpiece, Le Samourai. John Woo dedicated The Killer to Martin Scorsese, and echoes of Mean Streets (1973) can be felt throughout the film. Like Harvey Keitel’s Charlie, Ah Jong repeatedly finds refuge in a church, using it as a haven while he struggles with sin, guilt, and the hope of redemption. Woo’s signature white dove symbol also made its debut in this film. The Doves frequently appear in scenes of violent action, symbolizing purity and peace in contrast to the chaos and bloodshed on screen. Woo continued this symbolism in his later films, including Hard Target (1993), Face/Off (1997), Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), and Paycheck (2003).
Even if The Killer has a relatively straightforward plot, what really sets it apart is the relentless tension John Woo maintains from one scene to the next. As an example, consider the detailed sequence that starts where Ah Jong carefully stages the assassination of a powerful triad leader, then moves on to an exciting boat chase with Inspector Li, then to a beach ambush scene that injures an innocent girl, and finally to the desperate race to rescue her while avoiding the police. Each scene feeds into the next with relentless tempo, continually raising the film’s tension and momentum. The same goes for the undercover introduction of Inspector Li and Sei’s tense action scene, where he fights triad gangsters to obtain the money from them and hand it over to Ah Jong. Both are also expertly constructed sequences, showing Woo’s mastery of suspense, pacing, and escalation. There are sequences like these throughout the film that maintain a high level of intensity and energy, keeping the audience engaged.
The film’s influential action choreography (entirely improvised on set by Woo) is deliciously over-the-top, violent, and chaotic. His distinctive action style, gun fu, is balletic and resembles Kung fu-style choreography but with weapons. Whether it’s characters diving through the air, bullets flying, or blood exploding, the use of slow-mo, combined with expressive camera work and clear geography, makes for an immersive, urgent, kinetic style of action that remains just as exciting today as it was in 1989. What makes John Woo’s action scenes memorable, though, is that they’re never monotonous or without context. There’s always something on the line, and the action sequences are grounded in real emotional weight, like the shared moments between Ah Jong and Inspector Li in the climactic fight scene, which elevate the action and provide real meaning. John Woo’s hyper-stylized action, with tense Mexican standoffs, huge explosive set pieces, and cartoonish violence, has influenced a generation of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs, the Wachowskis in The Matrix trilogy, and the creators of the John Wick series, among others.
Apart from the stylish and flashy action, what makes The Killer a cult classic is its emotional core, which is both tender and effective. While I found the romance between Jennie and Ah Jong to be fairly conventional and somewhat underdeveloped, the film truly excels in its portrayal of male camaraderie. The evolving relationship between Ah Jong and Inspector Li is easily the film’s emotional core. Their relationship is inspired by the Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad magazine. It begins as a tense game of cat and mouse before gradually evolving into an unlikely friendship built on mutual respect and shared ideals of compassion, loyalty, and righteousness. Even Ah Jong’s relationship with his handler, Fung Sei, is complex and layered; the latter betrays him to the triad boss at first, but their old friendship and loyalty to each other (and Ah Jong’s forgiving nature) make Sei feel guilt-ridden, causing him to risk his life for his dear friend.
Chow Yun-fat is effortlessly charismatic as Ah Jong, delivering a star-making performance that helped catapult him to international stardom. Just seeing the man on screen is enough to conjure up memories of the likes of Alain Delon and Toshiro Mifune, who dominated every frame with their commanding presence, stoic grace, and an unmistakable aura of cool detachment. The Killer made John Woo an international name and paved the way for his successful move to Hollywood.
The Killer (1989) movie links: Letterboxd, IMDB, Wikipedia
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