The Killer

It’s a mix of fascination with sadness. Fascination with an extremely creative personality, as Gilliam undoubtedly is, a filmmaker who is always several steps ahead thanks to his imagination. Fascination with the fierce struggle against adversity, the mediocrity of a world that does not understand him and the producer's mistakes. A struggle that, given the predetermined outcome, may resemble Don Quixote's foolish confrontation with the windmills. And the sadness? This stems from the fact that rich imagination full of fantasy can go to waste with the author losing a lot of energy and time in a futile and useless struggle that cannot be won. Filmmaking is a trade, and Don Quixote is probably a cursed material that has already broken many filmmakers. (08/06/2004)

Where can I find John Woo with some screenwriting quality? It is true that when listening to dialogues, there is a serious risk that characters more subtle and more prone to the aesthetic beauty of language will start spewing nonsense, but let’s be honest, it’s just a matter of connecting more and more phenomenal "one/two people against thirty or more" action scenes. If I take out the dialogues, then everything else works 100%, and even the characters were done quite well. The Killer has a typical atmosphere of heroic bloodshed, a bittersweet, melancholic, sweetened "casio-soundtrack", which seems to want to be inspired by the urgency of Ennio Morricone. Of course, it turns out how it has to turn out, i.e., poorly from the point of view of a nitpicker and perfectly adequate from the point of view of a satisfied viewer. The crazy music hits the turbo tempo of the story and the naive venting of emotions. The Killer flows perfectly, everything is in good proportions - the naivety and the bittersweet aspects. The choreography of the shootouts during the 111 minutes show everything that action-packed Hollywood provenance lives on even today, several dozen bastards will die, heroes from both sides of the law will talk about friendship and finally show side by side what the bloodshed is all about from their own veins. Do you like Hong Kong? Then you have to love The Killer. (09/01/2006)

In a direct comparison, better by a class than Hard Boiled. Woo replaces endless (although effective) shootouts with shorter but more impactful fights, with a simple but thankfully strong storyline. Furthermore, Chow Yun-Fat is better as a tough killer than as a tough cop. (08/31/2006)

Chow Yun-Fat is a great character, his killer Jeffrey has charisma, a conscience and is a darn good shot. It’s not every day that you see the kind of action that we get in Killer. Incredible massacres alternate with moments so emotionally intense that you almost feel sad. In places, the theme of friendship and fate play a much greater role than the action itself and John Woo masterfully combines everything to form this riveting picture. (09/18/2006)

The Killer is mainly a timeless action romp that is hard to compare with anything. Unlike the action-packed Hard-Boiled, John Woo here places more emphasis on the characters and their personalities. The direction is different, but the outcome is similarly good. (02/20/2005)

This is exactly what it would look like if the Islamic State decided to make educational ideological flicks. Only that the protagonist wouldn't be so smooth, but a sobbing, cold-blooded asshole with a broken razor and a picture of Allah above his bed, and the two hundred or so people John Woo let in would be ordinary citizens with common sense and momentary bad luck... It's over-the-top (intentionally) and unemotional (unintentionally), but so efficiently and with such a tremendous pace. It's a load of pure cinematic action with a story that holds together and doesn't slip into self-parody, it almost made me want to shoot someone, too, because of the cinephilic adrenaline. The amazing work with sound bridges, visual and audio flashbacks, and parallelisms underscored by humorously varied shots propel Killer to the position of one of the most interesting and innovative B-movie action flicks of the 80s. I will gladly watch it again some day. 85% (01/21/2017)

I can't help it, but the film just doesn't impress me that much. Yes, it's well-directed, no doubt about it. They also managed to incorporate emotions quite well. However, when you've seen both parts of "A Better Tomorrow", you can't help but think that this has already been done before, to some extent. It is bloody, though, no doubt about that, and the slow-motion shots are at their peak here. I'm not completely blown away by it, but it's still an excellent action flick. (02/05/2014)