rodrig58 I wanted to see a film at the height of Le Samouraï (1967), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I was hoping to have the atmosphere and feelings of the masterpiece with Alain Delon. And this The Killer by John Woo seemed very promising at first. But in fact, after the first 5 minutes, the film becomes just an endless series of shootings, explosions and stunts. Many are even hilarious if not ridiculous. All guns have an endless number of bullets, pull indefinitely, without changing chargers. Among shootings and leaps forward, jumps back, tumbles and falls from height, many more gasps, moaning, sighs and groaning of the blind heroine or of those mobsters who are shot. Each one, many many times. Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee are both two nice, beautiful guys, with a lot of charisma and personality. But their stature and beautiful smile does not save the film from the mediocrity that makes me think of Bollywood melodramas type. The melancholic music, actually, the same few notes repeated throughout the film, also contribute to that. Some consider it a masterpiece and a cult film. I do not. The classics with James Cagney, Paul Muni, Lee Marvin or Jack Palance, are much better. Because they look more realistic!

motorway-58553 *** Minor spoiler here.This is one of John Woo's best film that brought him international attention. The acting and action grips you from start to finish with intensity. Many original work on display here and have been borrowed and used by other directors. The creativity of some of the action and non action scenes are to be admired, its nothing but a master piece.The scene where the detective investigates a crime scene in a flat, while sitting in an arm chair, he contemplates what could have happened flickers between himself and the person he is pursuing (who was also sitting in the same chair in the same room the day before)to convey the detective's thoughts was an exquisite work of art. I've not seen anything that have come close to that in terms of artistry in film making.

WalterSoprano This film not only has balls to the wall action and gun fights but it also has a very emotional driven story which is something that you don't see with action films that often. The story follows the story of a hit man with no directly given name that on accident shot an innocent girl blind to get enough money to pay for her surgery to restore her sight he has to take one last job to do so.From here on out there is an amazing film with as I already mentioned some of the greatest gunfights every put on screen and a very emotional touching story. I recommend this film to pretty much anybody that enjoys action films and cinema in general this film is a classic that should not be overlooked.

BA_Harrison Honourable assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun Fat) accidentally blinds pretty club singer Jenny (Sally Yeh) while carrying out a hit, but tries to make amends by taking one last job to pay for a cornea transplant for the injured girl. After Ah Jong is double crossed by Hoi, the triad boss who hired him, he finds himself forging an unlikely friendship with Li Ying (Danny Lee), the reckless cop who has been pursuing him.During the late '80s/early '90s, I attended several round-the-clock horror movie events at The Scala Cinema in King's Cross, London. One year, between movies, they screened an excerpt from a Hong Kong action flick that was so insanely violent that the usually rowdy crowd of gore-hounds fell silent in awe. The clip was from John Woo's The Killer, and it was my introduction to the glorious world of heroic bloodshed, where the line between hero and villain becomes seriously blurred, friendship, honour and redemption are common themes, and every bullet hit results in a bright red gout of blood!Featuring standout performances from Chow Yun Fat and Danny Lee, and superb direction from Woo, whose handling of his movie's emotional drama is as assured as his hyper-stylised hi-octane action scenes, The Killer remains one of the undisputed highlights of the entire bloodshed genre. The gun-play might be preposterous but it is brilliantly choreographed, with the frantic finale inside a church, which sees Ah Jong and Li Ying shooting it out against countless bad guys, bringing together all of Woo's trademarks: religious icons, balletic ballistic action, white doves, slow motion, and lots and lots of dead bodies.The film ends on a surprisingly downbeat note, which makes it an all the more powerful experience overall, one that would get full marks from me, if only I could understand how Ah Jong loses both his eyes in the final gunfight: tragically poetic it might be, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (if he was shot in both of his eyes, wouldn't the bullets have taken off the back of his skull?).9/10 (until someone can adequately explain Ah Jong's ocular trauma).