Director: John Woo
Screenplay: John Woo
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Danny Lee Sau-Yin, Sally Yeh, Paul Chu Kong, Kenneth Tsang, Shing Fui-On, Tommy Wong
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 111 min (standard cut) 130 min (Taiwanese cut)
Year: 1989
BBFC Certificate: 18
Hot on the heels of their exceptional release of Hard Boiled, Arrow Video have another John Woo classic ready for us on UHD & Blu-ray, 1989’s The Killer. This is an old favourite of mine, but I’ve not seen it for a long time, so I was thrilled to be able to check out the new release.
Surprisingly, the film was only a modest success on its release in Hong Kong (A Better Tomorrow and Once a Thief made far more money). It gained considerable attention overseas, however, bringing Hollywood knocking at John Woo’s door.
The Killer was originally going to be based around a love triangle between a cop, a killer and a woman. They even started shooting with this in mind. However, Sally Yeh’s schedule changed, and it turned out she wouldn’t be available for long enough to shoot all of her scenes. So Woo and producer Tsui Hark came up with the idea of the cop and the killer becoming friends, instead. There’s still a hint of that love triangle in there, but the themes are shifted, and the cop’s relationship with the girl becomes less about romance and more about business with a dash of sympathy.
To borrow from Arrow’s press blurb, “Ah Chong (Chow Yun-Fat) is a hitman whose latest job takes a wrong turn when, during a shootout at a lavish nightclub, he accidentally blinds singer Jennie (Sally Yeh) by firing his gun too close to her eyes. Racked with remorse, Ah Chong decides to retire from his life of crime and help Jennie get a cornea transplant. But when Ah Chong’s rancorous former boss betrays him, Ah Chong receives an unexpected helping hand from hot-headed police detective Lee Ying (Danny Lee, City on Fire).”
The Killer is a film about guilt, as well as honour or chivalry. The latter shows the influence of his mentor, Chang Cheh. Like in those early Shaw Brothers ‘heroic bloodshed’ films, the drama is heightened. Those less accustomed to Hong Kong cinema might find this rather melodramatic, in fact, particularly if they’ve only seen Hard Boiled or Woo’s Hollywood output.
I don’t mean melodramatic as a criticism, though. Without wanting to sound wanky, the film has an operatic quality. The emotions are played big, with a romantic (albeit slightly dated) score fuelling the fire. It’s not just a slap-bang fireworks display, it’s a powerful drama that may not be subtle, but works a treat.
Don’t let that scare off the action movie fans among you, though. The Killer certainly still fits the genre. It may not quite reach the excess of Hard Boiled, but it’s still loaded with gobsmackingly good action set-pieces.
Woo’s use of camera movement and the action choreography by Ching Siu-Tung and Lau Chi-Ho work hand-in-hand to create a fluidly dynamic and deliriously exciting film.
Woo’s sense of pace and rhythm is impeccable, too. He uses a lot of slow motion but knows exactly how and when to effectively use it, rather than slinging shots in for the sake of it. It’s not just the action scenes that are well edited, either. Generally, the film sails by without hitting a lull, whilst never losing focus on the drama either.
Woo has said he was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï and a Japanese film called Tôkyô gyangu tai Honkon gyangu (translated as ‘Tokyo Gang Vs Hong Kong Gang’), starring Ken Takakura, as well as being influenced by Martin Scorsese. I feel like Woo’s film is much more emotionally resonant than Melville’s, though, which opts for a colder approach. Woo does share the French director’s sense of ‘cool’, though.
The performances are strong too. Chow Yun-fat had finally made it big by this point, which meant his schedule almost kept him from being cast in the film. However, a chance meeting with Woo caused Chow to clear room for it.
Rather than ride on his charismatic, live-wire persona that had made him famous in A Better Tomorrow, Chow scales things back a bit for The Killer, delivering a surprisingly nuanced performance, despite the explosive action often going on around him. He also gets some dramatic heavy lifting to do as the film goes on.
Danny Lee played a lot of policemen in his career. Some claimed he almost thought he was one! As such, he’s perfectly cast here and does a great job of keeping the moral conflicts of his character simmering under the surface.
Sally Yeh claims she wasn’t happy with her performance, but I thought she did a good job as Jennie, the focus of both Ah Chong’s guilt and desires.
Underrated performances in the film come from the central characters’ brothers-in-arms. Kenneth Tsang plays Lee Ying’s partner and Paul Chu Kong plays Ah Chong’s handler. They help enrich the theme of brotherhood embedded in the film.
I won’t ramble on any further about The Killer because I’m sure you’ve either already seen it or have heard about how good it is elsewhere. All I can say is that it’s an operatic tale of guilt and brotherhood that’s loaded with all the stunningly cool set-pieces you expect from a John Woo film. Simply put, it’s a masterpiece.
Film: 
The Killer is out on 20th April in the UK in separate UHD and Blu-Ray Limited Edition releases, courtesy of Arrow Video. I watched the UHD version, and I thought it looked gorgeous. It has a softer, grainier look than Hard Boiled, but this is how it originally looked, so it’s perfect. Colours are stunning and there’s an impressive level of detail in the picture. I haven’t got my own screengrabs, but Arrow have provided some that I’ve used in this review, to give you an idea of how it looks. These have been scaled down and compressed though. As for audio, you get a choice of either Cantonese mono, Cantonese Dolby Atmos or English dub mono tracks. I opted for the Cantonese Mono and thought it sounded great. As an added bonus, you also get an option of watching with new or vintage subtitles.
4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
– Reversible sleeve and double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
– Six postcard-sized reproduction artcards
– Collectors’ perfect-bound booklet featuring new writing on the film by critics Priscilla Page and Frank Djeng, archival writing by critic Rafik Djoumi and an excerpt from an interview with John Woo conducted by Stéphane Moïssakis
DISC ONE – FEATURE AND EXTRAS (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)
– 4K Ultra HD (2160p) Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
– Original lossless Cantonese mono and Dolby Atmos audio, and lossless English mono audio
– Optional newly translated English subtitles for the Cantonese audio
– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English audio
– Brand new commentary by director John Woo and film journalist Drew Taylor
– Brand new commentary by critic David West
– Two archival commentaries by John Woo, one with producer Terence Chang
– Deleted and extended scenes
– Theatrical trailers
– Image gallery
DISC TWO – EXTRAS (BLU-RAY)
– The Hero of Heroic Bloodshed, a brand new feature-length documentary on John Woo’s career
– A Bullet Ballet, a brand new interview with director John Woo
– My Kind of Hero, a brand new interview with producer Terence Chang
– Editing The Killer, a brand new interview with editor David Wu
– Hong Kong Confidential, a new appreciation by author Grady Hendrix
– American Cinematheque 2025 introduction with Woo
– Archival interviews with cinematographer Peter Pau and actors Sally Yeh and Kenneth Tsang
– Four archival featurettes from 2001 with Woo and producer Tsui Hark
DISC THREE – EXTENDED CUT (BLU-RAY)
– High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of the 130-minute Taiwan Extended Cut with lossless Mandarin mono audio and optional English subtitles (contains standard-definition inserts)
– Option to view the Extended Cut with additional scenes from the Taiwan VHS release
– Unrestored print of the Extended Cut (standard-definition with burnt-in subtitles only)
* The Limited Edition Blu-ray release is the same but with a 1080p HD presentation of the film, of course, without Dolby Vision.
Arrow have put together another exhaustively comprehensive package. A big selling point for many will be the inclusion of the Taiwanese extended cuts, the details of which can be seen above. You can either watch it with the additional scenes mixed in with the remastered material, with further added scenes from the Taiwanese VHS release or the extended cut ‘raw’ in SD, with burnt-in subtitles and none of the remastered material. I must admit, I didn’t sit and watch the whole extended version, but I did watch the deleted/extended scenes, which I believe include most of the material missing from the Hong Kong cut. A lot of these are just minor extensions of scenes, but you do get a couple more reflections of the Lee Ying and Ah Jong characters, to make their similarities more blatant. Personally, I don’t think they’re needed.
With the Killer and Hard Boiled discs being produced so close to each other, the extras here follow a similar ‘formula’, if you will, to Arrow’s previous disc. As such, they’re once again John Woo-heavy, and there are quite a few repeated anecdotes. It’s better to have more than is needed than less, though, so I mustn’t grumble.
Like on the Hard Boiled disc, we get four commentaries, three of which feature Woo, two with different co-commentators and one solo track. The new one with Woo is great. Whilst his voice is faltering in his old age, he’s on fine form and has lots to say about the production. I only listened to one of the archival tracks, one recorded for Criterion alongside Terence Chang. I enjoyed this one too, though it’s not drastically different to the new track.
The fourth commentary is by David West. He strikes an effective balance between analysis and production background. This was my favourite of the commentaries.
The lengthiest extra, aside from the commentaries, is a feature-length documentary about Woo’s career in general. With a number of different contributors, it’s a wonderful piece that delves into different aspects of his work, as well as offering some production background and anecdotes.
There’s also a new interview with Woo on disc 2. Running close to 45 minutes, it covers a lot of ground. It shares a lot of information with the commentaries, but offers a more focused and concise account from the director.
There’s also a new onstage talk with Woo. Once again, a lot of familiar ground is covered.
Grady Hendrix talks about The Killer in an 11-minute piece. This is a handy overview of the film’s background and its qualities.
There’s also an interview with music editor David Wu. He talks about his job on the production, looking at the use of music in the film. It’s an interesting piece, exploring an aspect of filmmaking that’s rarely discussed.
Terence Chang features in another one of the new interviews. He talks about the film and why he thinks it proved to be Woo’s breakout in the Western market.
There’s an archival French piece about the use of editing in The Killer that runs around 16 minutes. It centres around interviews with Woo and producer Tsui Hark. I found it very interesting.
Another French piece looks at the development of the film. It covers some familiar ground but goes into a little more detail than elsewhere on certain points, due to being a fresher account.
There is another, slightly shorter French piece where Woo talks about the difficulty he faced in getting the cast and crew to understand the type of film he wanted to make.
There’s also an archival interview with cinematographer Peter Pau. This is excellent. He talks about Woo’s unusual but open and almost poetic way of working with his crew.
Another archival piece features actor Kenneth Tsang. He talks about his character and how it was to work with Woo and his co-stars. He’s a little bit of a ‘luvvy’ but in a nice, charming way.
There’s also an archival interview with Sally Yeh. She’s very humble, describing how she thinks she didn’t put enough effort into her job on the film and didn’t take it seriously at the time. She only made one more film after The Killer before taking a long break from acting.
I didn’t get a copy of the booklet to comment on that, unfortunately.
So, Arrow have done all they can to deliver the ultimate package for an astonishingly good film. Get it bought, if you haven’t already.
Disc/Package:
