2024’s The Killer is a remake of the 1989 movie of the same name by action master Jon Woo. He was known all throughout the 80’s and 90’s for his grandiloquent films featuring mobsters, triad battles, cops facing dangerous criminals and goons down on their luck trying to survive in a crime-infested world. All of his movies presented what it’s now called “bullet ballet,” a mix of high energy shots complemented by slow motion shots of people firing guns and doing incredible stunts, often causing amazing amounts of destruction. However, he was also a critic favorite for his lyrical audiovisual storytelling that emphasized simple emotions and stories but executed in clear and uncluttered manners via his directing.
Woo’s movies turned into cult objects not only in Hong Kong but also in America, influencing most action cinema ever since he began his career. When he came to America a lot of people started to think that he had lost his touch as his films became more “normal” and as Hollywood began to implement his techniques to mainstream products. Maybe people realized that they could get just as dynamic shootouts in other movies, as Woo wasn't necessarily trying to outdo himself. Hard Boiled (1992) was probably the last movie fans consider to be his masterpiece, and one of the top action movies of all time.
This new era of Woo has been a bit difficult, as he tried to get a variety of projects done, Hollywood wanted to create their own version of The Killer ever since the early 90’s. Originally, Walter Hill and David Giler were going to write it for Richard Gere and Denzel Washington to star in. Someone at Hollywood was scared of the homoerotic subtext people interpreted in the first movie so they decided to change the sex of one of the main characters, Michelle Yeoh would have been one of the leads.
After that there were still several failed attempts at bringing the project to life, Lupita Nyong'o was cast for the role, only to be replaced by Nathalie Emmanuel and filming was delayed from 2019 to 2023. Jon Woo came back to direct the film himself, expressing interest in the project because of its female lead (a first for him) and a decision was made to change the race of the leads as well.
The film tells the story of professional assassin Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), who accidentally blinds singer Jenn Clark (Diana Silvers) after an intense shootout at a nightclub. Zee takes pity on her and instead of getting rid of the witness decides to take her to her home and help her. Meanwhile, a police inspector named Sey (Omar Sy), investigates Zee and finds out about her reputation as Queen of the Dead while uncovering the drug dealing organization that ordered Zee’s hit, but now they want her head for leaving the witness alive. Both Zee and Sey team up to defeat Paris’ most dangerous criminal group.
From the very beginning Woo comes off as far more thoughtful and less tricky with his direction. The opening sequence features slow motion and an aethereal aura from the well illuminated scenario that’s Zee’s apartment. Jon Woo´s conception of the filmic time and space to convey character is rich and has its roots in the Melvillian hero he often references. The opening of this film, for example, is something far closer to the original Le Samouraï (1967) than the original Killer, it’s even lit and colored like it.
Woo’s conception of the female hero is one full of divinity and devoid of fault and earthly sin, an exterminating angel. Yet she still feels deep pain and sorrow for the innocent, lamenting her own acts, her code has been broken and now she must make up for it. Her tragic past and initiative to take action on it led her to a path that was morally wrong yet still respectable because of her own ethics. Woo’s action heroine is strong and capable on several levels, her flawlessness isn't intrusive or distracting, it's gloriously natural. Her conflict is internal and non-contrived, it’s never exaggerated or melodramatic. Zee is as calm and confident in battle as Woo is in the realm of action and movement. Woo adapts the stoic masculinity of Le Samouraï into a feminine force of uncompromised justice, working out of strict ethical rules rather than selfish romantic interest for the singer she rescues. Zee is reborn and redeemed by the end, there’s no punishment for her like in Le Samouraï.
People really want Woo to one up himself, at least in the spectacle department, but his modern search for action cinema goes into minimalistic territory (as it has in recent years), compressing what was before a highly hectic experience into smaller but equally expressive components. An example is the scene of the criminal getting shot at by the police inspectors at the start. The criminal takes a kid hostage but he is stopped by bullets, he falls down into the water and within that shot another micro-event is happening, his blue headphones (a distinct visual character feature up until this point) fall down into the ground as he hits the water. We change to a close up of the headphones on the floor as music plays (music we will hear later and that unites him to a character). The headphones are at first on focus and at the foreground, but as soon as we swallow the information we quickly change focus to the background, where the man’s dead body floats aimlessly. Simple and clear but powerful narrative skills are at display. The two most important elements of the sequence are synthesized in one shot organically.
The club scene is exemplary, Zee enters the room and in one camera movement Woo reframes her so that she is at the foreground and Jenn is in the out of focus background. After a shot of Jenn singing the same song we heard coming out of the headphones earlier (and after a few shots that establish characters Zee will interact with later) he unites the two women in a single shot, changing focus from background to foreground, now from Jenn’s point of view. Woo then unites them even closer, cutting from Jenn’s intimate close up of her eyes to a close up of the heroine's similarly shot gaze. Suggesting not only a relation but a bond or a comparison purely on visual terms that insist on the idea.
Another example of the way Woo changed is the way the singer is left invalid, instead of a flashing blinding light from a gunshot, it’s a very precise and potent hit in the back of her head what does it, then he cuts to a close up of her eye, then to a POV and the screen shows the increasingly distorted view of the character, then it goes black. He is no longer the astoundingly superlative filmmaker, he now seems to prefer a secure but secluded direction and conception of actions. Throughout the movie, the action is given to us not with explosive insanity but with detailed and solid images with smaller and more subtle movements (actions) inside them, which are the real meat. Everything we take for granted in other films of this type is now used with transparency, as the main point. Small actions, events and gestures are the focus now.
An interesting formal stylization is the bonding scene between Zee and the blind girl once she is brought to the assassin’s apartment, every succeeding shot is arrived at through dissolves, not by normal cuts, dissolves in a conventional movie signify the passage of time (a scene or sequence transition), but here things are reversed, the immediate time is conveyed with dissolves (like the ones from the opening credits), while a considerable and more real passage of time (from day to night) is done in one unbroken shot that stands still showing the Eiffel Tower and the sky. Woo is now at his most uncomplicatedly lyrical, while also evading blatant significance.
Even the typically uninteresting dialogue scenes of men in suits discussing crimes are turned interesting by Woo’s witful editing and direction, turning one of them on their head and adding ironic subtext to the conversation and lines through split screen (which are finally used well here because they convey information but don't allow flow disruption), making them far more noteworthy than usual. His touch is still there, like the slow motion and the dual guns, but it’s been heavily compressed.
The film isn't perfect, it's overlong (like most of Woo’s films), and Woo’s procedure is not as impactful as it could have been had he gone to further lengths into the minimalistic and expressive realm the movie only constantly enters, making it feel a bit underwhelming. It’s at least on par with his previous classics when it comes to cinematic expression. If people in the future want to see Woo at his pinnacle, then this is probably one of the bigger contenders.
When it comes to modern day action, here’s one done with the precise touch of a master. It’s just not a film that I consider to be transcendental (at least not yet), but it doesn't have to be.
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