The Killer (1989)

April 18, 2025 7:57 PM

Mob assassin Jeffrey is no ordinary hired gun; the best in his business, he views his chosen profession as a calling rather than simply a job. So, when beautiful nightclub chanteuse Jennie is blinded in the crossfire of his most recent hit, Jeffrey chooses to retire after one last job to pay for his unintended victim's sight-restoring operation.

John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat team up in this Hong Kong action classic.

At least as far as I can tell, very hard to find online.

posted by mark k (9 comments total)

High melodrama and lots of guns getting emptied. A few double crosses. The action scenes are the top quality you'd expect from John Woo. I was affected by the dramatic arc too, which (considering how heavy handed it is) leaves me a bit angry at myself. Chow Yun-Fat's screen presence goes a long way to selling things.
posted by mark k at 8:02 PM on April 18 [2 favorites]

Classic. Went to some trouble for the armourers to get certain guns/ replicas into HK.
posted by porpoise at 8:25 PM on April 18

Gender-reversed remake
posted by billsaysthis at 9:44 PM on April 18

How's the remake? I ran across it looking for the original enough times, but was highly skeptical it'd be worth my time.
posted by mark k at 10:22 PM on April 18

How's the remake?

Didn't impress, forgettable. Not much shared with the original 1989 movie other than perhaps terrible romantic chemistry.
posted by porpoise at 11:01 PM on April 18 [1 favorite]

Internet Archive has you on this one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:44 AM on April 19

Internet Archive also has the longer Taiwan version.
posted by neckro23 at 4:17 PM on April 19

One of the great action movies.

And it’ll be possible to find easily sometime in the foreseeable future! Shout! Studios managed to purchase rights to the legendary Golden Princess catalog, which includes this, other early Woo movies, a lot of good Tsui Hark, and so much more. The library was trapped in rights hell forever — the rumor I heard is that the owner wasn’t willing to do single movie deals, so someone had to pony up enough for the full catalog, which I’m sure was a pretty penny. But now we can count on seeing those classics in the market again.
posted by Bryant at 6:51 PM on April 20 [3 favorites]

Oh nice! Lots of good ones there that are on my to-watch list.
posted by mark k at 7:58 PM on April 20