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The Killer  -  Criterion Collection

The Killer - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: action packed and good drama
Review: Jeffrey (Yun Fat Chow from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) is a professional killer who after being hired to do one last job finds himself being hunted down by the men he works for. The same plot has been copied many times but what makes this film unique is that it is a story about friendship, trust and conscience.

Jeffrey is a calm, cool and collected professional killer who does his job well but we see from the very beginning of the film that he carries a burden around with him. After Jeffrey's first contract in the film, he has painful flashbacks of the incident, so after that, he will never be the same. He then decides that his next contract will be his last so he reluctantly takes the assignment for 1.5 million dollars. But then things get complicated because the same men that he works for decide to try to kill him before he gets paid. The middle man in the story (the man who pays Jeffrey) is caught between being loyal to his boss or being loyal to his friend (Jeffrey). There is also a cop chasing Jeffrey who comes to admire him, but can his friendship with Jeffrey prove to be his undoing or work in his favor?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I was blown away
Review: This movie is by far the most entertaining shoot-em up I have ever seen. I have seen some pretty violent Hollywood movies, but none of them match up to this. The movies almost 2 hours long and there are several slow parts. The action sequences are by far the highlight of this movie. Unlike Hollywood movies, the hero is not some muscle-bound Austrian who simply dispatches bad guys with a few shots and then says some sarcastic remark. In The Killer, Chow yun fat is a normal looking person who pumps an entire clip into some thug, who then crashes through a plate glass window or flies over a railing. The battle at the church and the first assassination scene are some of the greatest fight scenes on film. The camera work is great and the subtitles are okay. One of the things you have to realize that the violence is supposed to be over the top and outrageously violent, but the violence is never ridiculous. I dont think that people should complain about violence in Hollywood without noting that other countries make far more violent and explicit movies than the U.S. does.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A lot of action with a good story
Review: When I saw hard boiled, I thought, it couldnt get any better than this, but boy I was dead wrong.

I bought this movie, and hard boiled(As a combo), and recieved it today. With all the reviews, I was expecting something simmilar to hard boiled, but I got more.

Right when the first shootout started, I knew I was gonna like this movie. Man I watched it untill the end just amazed. I had to watch it twice to understand the story, because at first I dind't care about the story, I just loved the stylish action I was looking at.

Chow Yun Fat is just one of the best actors alive, and John Woo is just a brilliant director. If anyone loves action movies, has got to pick this up, and hard boiled. Those 2 movies are perhaps the greatest action movies ever made.

Peace

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "I believe in justice but nobody trusts me."
Review: Before churning out big budgeted Hollywood productions, John Woo carved out for himself a cult following with his Hong Kong productions. These glossy action extravaganzas were a breath of fresh air for fans of the action genre as Woo employed novel filmmaking techniques that highlighted the raw beauty of chaos itself. Fierce gunfights became as graceful as ballet performances and criminals became as suave as fashion models. Yet, Woo's films did not sacrifice substance in light of its overflowing style. His characters and stories always had a moral center where even the worst of villains were bound by strict codes of virtue, honor, and loyalty.

"The Killer" is about two men on opposite sides of the law: Jeffrey (Chow Yun-Fat), a professional hit-man, and Inspector Li (Danny Lee), a cop determined to bring Jeffrey to justice. Jeffrey is on the run after the mob places a price on his head for making a mess out of a nightclub hit. The botched hit also haunts Jeffrey on a personal level because his conscience refuses to let him forget about the innocent nightclub singer who was blinded in the shootout. The extent of this guilt surprises Li when he finally catches up with Jeffrey and the two men eventually develop a mutual respect for one another when they discover they both are fuelled by the same lust for justice. When the mob finds the pair hiding out in a church, the new buddies team up to battle their mutual foe and light up the night with a firestorm of bullets.

"The Killer" was a fitting film to end a decade that was saturated with brainless shoot-'em-up films. It infused a new sense of style and complexity into a genre run into the ground by the un-ending parade of Rambo clones. This not only revived the action film but set the foundation for other inspired works to follow. Both Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee distinguish themselves as well as polished Hollywood actors and deserve much credit for helping to develop living, breathing three-dimensional characters that do not fire guns just for the sake of firing guns. Logic sometimes doesn't bother to intervene into the story of "The Killer," but its kinetic energy helps to compensate for its outrageousness. Pull up a chair and have a good time with this film. Subtle it is not. Entertaining it is.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the best movie ever
Review: This film is a classic. it combines the strong moral values common in John Woo films, and the belief that good will ultimately triumph over evil, with the ballistic action that we have come to expect and love from Mr Woo. John Woo showcases his amazing ability to do a fantastic action scene with only 6 people involved. in a nutshell it is a story of redemption, friendship, honour and love, telling us that it is always better to do the right thing, the climax wrenches a tear from the eye every time. some accuse this film of being overly sentimental, and the style is an acquired taste, but if you love movies with a strong moal streak, and love beautifullyh choreographed gunplay, then by all means, this is the film for you

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Action Movie Ive Ever seen
Review: This was a thrilling movie I didn't think much of it before I saw it. This film has almost everything action, (Strong) violence, some romance, drama and even comedy (If you have a black taste of humor) I haven't seen hard boiled yet but NOW I cant wait to see it. Beware though this a violent movie, a very violent movie it makes desperado look like a G movie and im serious too. There is only one flaw and that is the editing is a bit off but who cares you won't notice, this film has WAY more balls then any american action movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Killer KILLS all other action films!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Style
Review: The Killer is hands down , flat out, the best action movie ever made. There is no arguably. There is no match. This is the greatest movie ever. I just can't stress enough how awsome this movie is. Chow is so cool. He can look stylish shooting one or two guns, two preferably though. Best actor ever. He contributes so much to the movie that it wouldn't be the same without him. He's so graceful as he slides across the floor guns blazing at anybody stupid enough to cross. The music was very good, especially the opening theme, which i now want badly. The story is about a hitman on the job in a night club who accidently blinds a singer during a shootout. Feeling guilty, he takes one last job to pay for a cornea transplant for the woman, but is betrayed by the big boss because he asks for an excessive amount of money for the hit. The following can be called the best gun-fu you'll ever see. The blood let is not that of a horror movie, but I think the mature audiences label on the back of the DVD case will explain that to you. It is bloody. My only complaint is that its kinda fakey when the people get shot in the head cause they still blink and stuff, but it doesn't detract from the overall experience. Take the advice that I and the many other legions of heroic bloodshed reviewers and professional critics have said. The Killer is great cinema. The last gunfight will make you drop to your knees and beg for more, because it is really something to behold, like one of the ten wonders of the world or how ever many there are. Make room on your shelf for THE KILLER,THE GREATEST ACTION MASTERPIECE IN THE WORLD. I gaurantee that it wont collect dust.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: John Woo's career defining movie
Review: Long before John Woo directed Face/Off, Windtalkers, Broken Arrow, etc was this movie. In 1989, he created a film that would surpass all action movies, and even today, has yet to meet a film that can compare.

In 'The Killer', Chow Yun-Fat's hitman character blinds a nightclub singer doing what was supposed to be his final hit. Out of sympathy and love, he attempts to pay a hefty amount of money to correct her eyesight, but has to overcome the hardest trials of his life to do so.

John Woo incorporates his classic parallelism & two sides of the law themes into this film, and they work perfectly. And even though this movie can be melodramatic at times, it does not detract from the movie at all. The actors here are top-notch, and the movie is superbly paced. Not to mention there is a gunfight every ten minutes or less.

If you ever wanted to see dual-fisted pistol action, this is your ticket. John Woo makes every gunfight into a work of art, and it is ultra stylish and magnetic. The last battle in the cathedral is quite possibly the best action scene ever created.

I give this title a well earned 5 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Who needs substance when a movie's this stylish?
Review: Despite what many critics might claim, John Woo isn't a particularly "deep" director. While his films mine those hallowed pits of existentialism and its inherent links to violence a bit more capably than many other "smart" action movies, his use of symbolism is at best a tad heavy-handed, and at worst unbearably suffocating. The Killer was perhaps the best example of this, what with its heavy use of religious iconography and Jeff's (Chow Yun-Fat) predilection for white clothing near the end of the movie, a ham-fisted visual approach to indicate Jeff's intended departure from his old life (a suit which predictably becomes splattered with more and more blood as the climax approaches).

However, does any of that matter? Heck no! Not when the direction is this stylish, the actors this good, and nearly every single scene just screams that utterly undefinable concept of "cool." An impossible number of bullets fly, the heroes survive against incalculably impossible odds (and with panache to spare, no less!) and exploding fuel canisters are placed in the oddest of places. Woo has an uncanny ability to craft delicate, ballet-like action sequences that will leave the viewer absolutely breathless, scenes which are undoubtedly helped by principal actor Fat's familiarity with Woo's technique (for example, you will notice Fat much more at ease with his character and movements than he was in, say, A Better Tomorrow I or II).

And that is, perhaps, what makes the Killer so utterly watchable and such a thrill to watch repeatedly - the elevation of style over substance (a sensibility that Woo would only take to new heights in his next film Hard Boiled). The undertones of the story take a backseat to the hyper-kinetic gunplay, and logic has been soundly banished into the realm of heart-felt dramas and gritty war chronicles. Guns have a seemingly inexhaustable supply of ammunition, reloading is for chumps, and one bullet is simply never, ever enough to kill someone properly. Nearly 14 years later, The Killer still remains a hallowed benchmark to judge all other action movies against, and it is in this reviewer's humble opinion that no other movie of recent make, no matter how many of Woo's moves their respective directors might have copped, can begin to approach The Killer's majestic, even poetic dance of violence.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW!
Review: The Killer is THE action movie. "Die Hard" has brains and one-liners, but the ending doesn't quite wrap everything up as well and it takes too long to get things going. "Killer" keeps your attention for all 110 minutes and blazes away with more bullets than any other movie sans Windtalkers and Hard-Boiled. Chow Yun-Fat maintains a sense of cool even when hundreds of goons are gunning for his hide. He nonchalantly whips out his twin Berettas (in Woo's book: the hero's redemptive weapon) and fires with accuracy that Sgt. York would be jealous of.
A mind-blowingly awesome flick, don't be looking for psychological leasons here. Just a kick-rear adrenaline high.


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