The Killer

This is not the review for the DRAGON DYNASTY released bluray.It is for the FORTUNE STAR bluray release 7.1 TRUE HD AUDIO NEWLY HD Remastered release in Korea.I bought the DRAGON DYNASTY released bluray and was so mad that I threw it away right away because I had a better DVD version with the nicely DTS audio and pretty good VIDEO track.But this one, man, you should see this one.The Audio is not as good as I expected but the video is so far there cannot be a better one in another 50 years.The Video was concentrated in showing as if it was shot in digital.The image is as close as HD not film.It was transferred beautifully.As you all know the film itself is a masterpiece and I have seen it a thousand times.There is a man who is a cop who meets this killer and falls in love with him. The cop is not a homo sexual but he just fell in love so deeply.He won't do the same with any other man in his whole life again but just with this man.He even tries to save the killer's girl just because of him. He has no interest in the killer's girl but just him.The killer. During complete the mission, he accidentally made this singer blind.You see this killer is a romantist and he couldn't just let the singer woman alone.He has to take care of her. He always stays close to her.One day he finally comes close to her to save her from a bunch of mobs who try to steal monet and rape her.From then on the whole world means just for this woman to him.The cop, he comes closer to this killer.Even before seeing him with his own eyes, he already becomes one with the killer. He even imitates his killing moment as if he was there.He was the killer already. He was not the cop anymore.When two finally meet on the woman's apartment, there were as if there is a spark. a big shinning spark so bright that we can see if from miles.From then on two become one. They fight together, they become worriors and fight in this huge war.Their neck doesn't matter anymore.When one is fighting with his gun the other was so happy seeing him because now they are one.When finally the killer died, the cop has no more meaning to live anymore.He has to just do the revenge. So he get rid of the name tag and finishes the guy who killed the killer.Before the killer died, he lost his eyes just like he stole from the singer. His punishment fulfiller from god.This movie was wandering all my life along with other films like <DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE><TIME OF THE GYPSIES><BLACK RAIN><VALERIE and her week of wonders><BUGSY><TWIN PEAKS FIRE WALK WITH ME><LANDSCAPE IN THE MIST><ALICE><TOTO LE HERO><ALL THE FALLING THINGS HAVE WINGS><THE UMBRELLA OG CHERBOURG> and so on.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. Anyone who watches this will also have to check out Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow. John Woo was in full form with these classics.

Update: never mind! The Dragon Dynasty blu-ray is now back in stock.Update 2: according to another review above this one there exists a Fortune Star blu-ray of The Killer. I don't see it on Amazon, but I'm definitely going to seek it out. Also, I noticed that the old US DVD is gone from the release listings on Amazon, or maybe it got moved and requires a better search. I still don't want the Dragon Dynasty blu-ray even though it's $25I am not paying $80 to be disappointed by the Dragon Dynasty Blu-ray of The Killer. However, I will take one for the team and buy their DVD release.I don't really know how to recommend this version. Yes, it seems like someone put some effort into the presentation here. And there are two discs. But I just don't know, fellas. I'm keeping it for reference purposes, but to enjoy the film I'll probably watch the old US DVD release. At least that one feels right, even if it's kinda rough.If you own The Killer on DVD or laserdisc or whatever, just stick with that and dream of a better tomorrow where a decent release is made available to us.

It's complicated, my relationship to this movie. John Woo started out doing comedies, I understand from someone who met him one time. So John Woo has an impeccable sense of timing. The first time I saw "The Killer," I loved it. Here are my notes:This is great filmmaking. John Woo was on his game here. Great atmosphere, great acting, great photography, beautiful visually. One of the best action movies of all time, I'd say. I have only one real complaint. (SPOILER ALERT) At the end, I would not have had the killer lower his gun. Just shoot the guy in the head. But I see what they were going for, sympathy for the killer. Oh, well. Still, a classic.So I bought "The Killer" from Amazon. When I started to watch it the second time, I had forgotten about the lovely woman, the singer who is blinded accidentally by the killer, played by Chow Yun-Fat, one of my favorite actors.I lost my sense of aesthetic distance and felt so sorry for the singer that I couldn't watch it. Go figure. I still recommend the movie. It's beautifully filmed and has a better story line than a lot of Hong Kong action movies. My favorite movie by John Woo.

The KillerThis is how to do an over the top bloody action movie right! The killer is definitely one of the greatest Hong Kong action movies of all time! Directed by John Woo, and Starring Chow Yun Fat. I'll explain this film in a nutshell. A Hit-man Named Ah Jong "actor name: chow yun fat" was on an assassin mission. While in the mint's of this assassination, A singer named Jennie was blinded in a crossfire of bullets, that seared her eyes. Ah Jong felt responsible for her injuries. Jennie and Ah-Jong soon become a couple, 6 months after the shootout "keep in mind that she does not know that he was the assassin". Meanwhile a cop named: Danny Lee has an investigation to track down this hit-man. What I like about this film is that the Hit-man and the cop are equally matched, and become almost like rivals. "like you see in the picture below." Also there's this strange love triangle with Jennie. Anyway, there's more to this movie then what I just explained. You'll have to experience the rest of it yourself. The killer is a must see for action movie fans. The killer holds a 7.9 rating on IMDb and a 98%/100 % on rotten tomato's (which is pretty good). I'll give this movie 5 Stars.

Amazing movie, crazy action and no reloading to slow things down. Every pistol can shoot dozens of bullets! A great story best enjoyed in original language.

Bien arrivé hier, très bien protégé dans son enveloppe à bulles, quasiment Neuf impeccable ! Merci.Film d'Action 100% JOHN WOO avec ses scènes de Gunfights au ralenti et CHOW-YUN FAT toujours aussi impeccable !Fans d'Action et de JOHN WOO, Maître en la matière, foncez les yeux fermés, certes c'est cher mais la côte a explosée car très Rare.Vous en aurez pour votre argent !

The media environment that drove the popularity of The KillerBefore talking about The Killer, it makes sense to talk about the media landscape. The late 1980s and early 1990s was when consumers first started by buy video films rather than rent them. Retail video sales had been pioneered in the UK by the music labels who sold video albums and recordings of live performances.The prices of films suddenly became much more accessible. Not cheap, but the price of a couple of CD albums at the time. Consumers were becoming more film literate. Curated series like:MoviedromeThe Incredibly Strange Film ShowSon of the Incredibly Strange Film ShowJonathan Ross Presents for One Week OnlyThese series were our film studies lecture theatre with Alex Cox and Jonathan Ross as our tutors.Young people’s expectations and interests expanded. Video companies started to address market needs. At first, video packaging was influenced by the rental market. The rental market needed display cases that would have hundreds of people handling a box. Durability and keeping things hygienic was the primary concern. But companies realised more consumer sales with nicer packaging. Companies like Tartan and Artificial Eye looked to people with niche interests.The video rights for these films were cheap and there was a ready audience to watch them. These cheap film rights were already well known, fuelling US grindhouse cinema in the 1970s & ’80s. So they were the ideal vanguard to get consumers to build their own video library.Magazines sprang up to address the need for consumer reviews. this included Anime UK, Empire (seen as the serious film buffs read), Shivers and The Dark Side.The Killer and IThe Killer was one of a number of videos that I had bought at the time. It sat by my VCR (video cassette recorder) alongside Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow. All three were released on the ‘Made In Hong Kong’ video label. I also had a copy of the Japanese anime opus Akira. My collection was rounded out with a few spaghetti westerns including Keoma The Violent Breed. The westerns were released by Aktiv as part of The Spaghetti Western Collection. These were films that made a real impact on me and that I watched again and again.I was blown away by the visual experiences that both genres offered.Over time I have been building up my library of Blu Ray and DVD disks and managed to reacquire a copy of The Killer. Last week I watched The Killer for the first time in a few years.The perfect confectionA perfect product is a mix of the right ingredients prepared in the right way for the right time. In the mid-to-late 1980s Hong Kong cinema was reaching its cultural peak.The KillerThe original Hong Kong poster for The KillerThe Killer is made up of layers. These layers were driven by a mix of:Visionary directorsThe febrile atmosphere in the run-up to re-colonisation by the Chinese communist governmentA deep bench of talentHong Kong itselfJohn Woo – visionary directorDepending whose article you read on John Woo, you will get a number of different influences mentioned with regards to John Woo’s works of this period. This film has all of them on screen at once. John Woo is a Christian, and you see a lot of these motifs in The Killer‘s imagery and settings including the iconic church shootout.There is a stylistic nod to French new wave films directed by Jean-Pierre Melville like Le Samourai. Gun-fu was influenced by Japanese yakuza films with their honour code and no-holds barred violence. Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honour and Humanity series exemplified this genre. The pacing of his films owe much to Japanese chambara films like The Seven Samurai and classic Chinese novels.The reality is that the Triads were seldom rule bound or honourable isn’t allowed to get in the way of a good story.A combination of an appreciation of westerns and the works of Melville, with being in Hong Kong during the late 1960s and early 1970s meant that Woo entered the film world as a young script supervisor for Cathay Studios. He became an assistant directors at Shaw Studios. By the mid-1970s he made kung-fu films with fighting chereographed by Jackie Chan.In the mid-1980s he had a chance to pivot and take more creative control, which resulted in A Better Tomorrow.Much is commented on Woo’s use of white doves in The Killer and subsequent films. The dove is a Christian motif; Woo also referenced the white and black crows of the Spy vs. Spy comic strip. Finally pigeons and doves were kept in coops on the top of tenement apartment buildings in Hong Kong such as John Woo would have lived in after the Shek Kip Mei Fire burnt down his first Hong Kong home. They also end up on the menu at some of the city’s restaurants.Doves were also very much an 1980s cultural moment from Blade Runner‘s climatic rooftop scene to Prince. Though to my knowledge Woo never mentioned either of them as influences.Less commonly mentioned is the scene where the stray cat enters Jennie’s flat it signals misfortune for the main characters in the film based on Chinese superstition.The febrile atmosphereThe Hong Kong of the 1980s was a city with a sell by date. It had become a modern well-run city after reaching a nadir in the early 1970s but all that could be easily done away with. Hong Kongers moved freely around overseas Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Hong Kong and to a lesser extent Taiwan became media hubs. By the early 1970s, Hong Kong music was being sung in Cantonese around Asia, the films in Asian cinemas and Made in Hong Kong products were shipped around the world.Prior to 1984, there was a wide range of possibilities from the British muddling through and carrying on running Hong Kong to a Chinese invasion. Generations of Hong Kong emigres moved to the UK, Australia, Canada and America for education or a bolt hole if the worst happened. Post-1984 things became real.Vancouver’s Hong Kong community expanded during this time as middle class professionals followed the lead of ‘super man’ Li Ka shing and had their families based in the Canadian city while they visited from time to time. It also helped that Vancouver’s inner city core felt like the high density living of Hong Kong, as did the ocean edge.All this comings and goings meant that Hong Kongers were exposed to a variety of foreign and domestic influences like John Woo, rather than the more pedestrian content available in the UK at the time.The higher ‘moral’ values of The Killer were a line that connected modern Asia to an ancient Chinese past reassuring stability in a changing world.Star power – the deep bench of talent.The Killer was blessed with a strong cast of performers. Chow Yun-Fat had a perfect foil in Danny Lee. Sally Yeh is amazing in her performance as an actress and a musician. Taiwanese Canadian Yeh was already a successful Cantopop artists before acting in The Killer. The depth of talent in Hong Kong was down to the studio system operated by production companies and TV stations. Chow was a product of TVB’s actor training and made his name as a Cantonese drama heart throb.Beyond the actors, you had a deep bench of technical talent to draw on such as cinematographer Peter Pau. Pau came up through the conveyor line approach to Hong Kong filmmaking and The Killer was his sixth film. Things needed to be done right first time, because films had very little shooting time in comparison to their western counterparts.People like Mr Pau are responsible for the professionalisation of the mainland Chinese film industry. The collaborations which snuffed out the Hong Kong film industry acted as a technical finishing school by Hong Kong filmmakers for their Chinese counterparts.Hong Kong itselfThe Killer is one of the things that inspired me to move half way around the world. Hong Kong’s mix of claustrophobic yet homely flats in composite buildings, neon signage and the constant buzz of the city are something you won’t see anywhere else.the killerThis contrasts with the small town feel of the islands. The Killer managed to shoot in locations like the busy Causeway Bay shopping district, which was done in just three hours.Just across the border mainland China feels too chaotic. Singapore too neat and ordered. Hong Kong got the mix just right, which is the reason why the anime Ghost In The Shell borrowed so much from the city’s mid-century architecture.All four elements come together to make a perfect confection:Visionary directorsThe febrile atmosphere in the run-up to re-colonisation by the Chinese communist governmentA deep bench of talentHong Kong itselfImpactThe Killer‘s reception in the Hong Kong market was lukewarm at first, due the June 4th incident in Beijing. But by the end of the year it was a respectable 9th in Hong Kong box office earnings. What happened in the international markets was unprecedented for the time. The Killer was shown on the international festival circuit and became much more critically acclaimed outside of Hong Kong than within the city itself.If you’ve watched a Luc Besson film, you’ve seen a film influenced by The Killer, as have most Hollywood action directors making films in the mid-to-late 1990s like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… sampled the living daylights out of The Killer.Three decades on, The Killer still moves me. Given changes that have gone on in Hong Kong, we won’t see its like again.

As always this Chow Yun Fat movie did not disappoint

Ha quasi 30 anni ma non li dimostra. Storia di un killer a fine carriera. Una pietra miliare del noir e non solo ed ha niente a che vedere coi film americani. I "cattivi" ricordano quelli della serie "Agente 007" con Sean Connery, mentre Il finale è degno del migliore Peckinpah ("Il mucchio selvaggio").