The Killer changed all that. Aggressively championed in America by the likes of Martin Scorsese and Walter Hill, it not only revealed the immense richness and variety of post-1970s Hong Kong popular cinema to a more mainstream audience, but it single-handedly cemented Woo's reputation as the world's greatest action director (when a Hollywood executive admitted that Woo could certainly direct an action scene, Quentin Tarantino - another fan - said "sure, and Michelangelo could paint a ceiling!") - and even though several more Woo films from both earlier and later in his career have gone into distribution in the West (seven other DVDs are currently available), The Killer is still generally reckoned to be his masterpiece, and with good reason.
It's the perfect fusion to date of Woo's highly personal blend of romantic melodrama and OTT action, with a plot that would have come across as more than faintly ridiculous in the hands of almost any other director (one of the reasons a projected Walter Hill-directed remake with Richard Gere never happened was the impossibility of getting the story to work convincingly in an American context). Chow Yun-Fat is a ruthless professional killer, who accidentally blinds a nightclub singer while carrying out one of his jobs (which seems to involve wiping out everyone in the nightclub apart from her!). Stricken with remorse, he decides to retire - but not before taking on One Last Mission in order to raise the money to pay for her eye operation.
And this is where things start to go wrong - the job in question turns out to be rather bigger than the killer had anticipated, and to complicate matters still further a maverick cop is on his tail, whose interest in him is more than merely professional (though Woo was horrified at suggestions that there was a gay subtext: he genuinely never thought of it that way!). The complex relationship between the two men (who recognise each other's qualities almost right from the start) is perhaps best illustrated in the now-legendary Mexican standoff scene, where cop and killer aim guns at each other while the blind singer bustles around offering them tea, oblivious to the underlying tension.
It all ends tragically, of course - and unlike virtually any other violent action movie with a triple-figure body count, the tragedy is genuinely heartfelt, not simply there in order to push convenient dramatic buttons. In this, Woo is helped enormously by Chow Yun-Fat's immensely subtle, multi-layered portrayal of a man defined by his own multiple contradictions, as well as Woo's own feelings about honour and chivalry. In this, Woo is squarely in the tradition of other great maverick directors like Sam Peckinpah and Jean-Pierre Melville - both major influences (indeed, The Killer is a not particularly well-concealed remake of Melville's ultra-cool Le Samourai, but unlike many remakes it is at least worthy of the comparison).
Visually, this DVD is certainly very watchable, but it's not up to Criterion's usual high standards. The transfer was made in 1992 for a laserdisc release - as a result, it's in non-anamorphic NTSC, and the consequent lack of definition is sometimes a little obtrusive (put bluntly, it can be on the fuzzy side!). There's also a surprisingly large number of spots and scratches, especially considering that the film was made only three years before the transfer! So while it's a vast improvement on tape releases, it's not noticeably superior to many other Hong Kong DVDs I've seen on far less reputable labels - despite Woo's personal supervision and approval of this version.
Sonically, it's presented in the original mono, in line with Criterion's policy of presenting films exactly as they would have been shown at the premiere. To be honest, having heard a great many Hong Kong films rather unconvincingly remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 but betraying their mono roots all too clearly, this isn't a particularly big deal - but anyone expecting the kind of sound offered by Broken Arrow or Face/Off is in for a disappointment: there are plenty of bangs and crashes, but because they all come from the same speaker, their impact is cumulatively much less, and there's also a modicum of distortion at the top end (though it's never seriously obtrusive).
There's a very generous selection of 41 chapter stops, and it should also be noted that the subtitles are way above average for a Hong Kong film - I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation, but they certainly go into more detail with a far better command of the English language than on most Hong Kong DVDs that I've seen.
In terms of extras, Criterion have put together a reasonable if unspectacular package. There's a set of five scenes that were deleted from the first cut of the film that premiered in Taiwan - but, as ever with such scenes, it's easy to see why they hit the cutting-room floor. There's also the operatic US theatrical trailer, which will have been many Americans' first exposure to Woo's distinctive visual style.
The meatiest extra, unsurprisingly, is the commentary, recorded in 1992 by John Woo and production executive Terence Chang (who went on to become Woo's producer when he moved to Hollywood). They complement each other well: Woo discusses the film's content and technique and pays tribute to his major influences: Melville, Peckinpah, Leone and Scorsese, while Chang talks about the realities of working in the Hong Kong film industry, with its low budgets and back-breaking schedules, and supplies a lot of interesting background and biographical information. As with many Criterion commentaries, it comes with its own chapter selection that lists the subjects being discussed.
All in all, it's a reasonable DVD by normal standards, but when set aginst other Criterion discs it's a bit low-key - especially when compared with their DVD of Woo's later Hard-Boiled, which does a rather more impressive job in terms of setting the film in context.
[Sadly, this DVD has now been deleted by Criterion due to rights complications - though second-hand copies still pop up from time to time: indeed, that was how I bought my copy! But the film is also available on the Media Asia label, and while this version lacks the extras mentioned above, it does claim to have a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack as opposed to the mono one on offer here]
Michael Brooke
| Distributor: Criterion
Director:
Starring: |
| - trailer
- commentary - deleted scenes |
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