Killer, The (1989, dir. John Woo)

[Toge]

Killer, The (1989)

AKA Dip Huet Seung Hung (Original Cantonese Title)
Written & directed by: John Woo
Produced by: Tsui Hark
Starring: Chow Yun Fat, Danny Lee, Sally Yip, Kenneth Tsang, Chu Gong & Sing Fui On
DVD distributed by Medusa
DVD digitally re-mastered & restored by Hong Kong Legends

THE SYNOPSIS:

Ah Jong (Chow Yun Fat from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is an assassin, killing people for hard cash. During one hit, he blinds beautiful singer named Jenny (Sally Yip from Peking Opera Blues) by knocking out her corneas. He regrets this and tries to bring back her sight. Meanwhile, Inspector Lee (Danny Lee from City On Fire) & Tsang (Kenneth Tsang from The Replacement Killers) are investigating a gun smuggling operation. Ah Jong & Lee's lives cross path when Lee finds out that Jong was part of an assassination attempt during a dragon boat race. So both men's fates will cross...



THE FILM:

John Woo (director of Face/Off & Mission: Impossible 2), is the director of this film and his unique style of camera movement and sheer emotional gun play is unmatched is the world of Hong Kong gunplay cinema. John focuses on close ups to express the feeling on the character, but with panned shots, you can see he is focusing on where the character is going from to and from, rather then using the wide angle to see what is in the background. Also what John does in this film is slowly, without you actually noticing it, zoom into the character's face, especially if he is in a certain mood, if is saying something every expressively. Head and body shots are really non-existent, except for the famous Lee & Chow walk out. Overall, as always, Woo's use of camera is always relevant to what the setting of the scene is, and makes as much use of what is there to see.

However, I see comedy in this film should be next to nothing since this is such a serious film, and the comedy involving Kenneth Tsang & the old granny brings the seriousness of the film down. Some may criticize that that comedy is suitable for a break from the drama and gunplay and I agree with this for some films, but for this film, I don't see the point for comedy. This film is way to serious with all the action and sometimes tense drama.



Chow Yun Fat plays, as cool-as-ice Ah Jong. He acts out his role very statically, not doing very much, during dialogue scenes, as you will notice. Chow, especially on close-ups, always has an expression on his face. It's never a straight one, it's always anything other then straight. During gunplay, this is where Chow excels at. He never seems to be angry when he shoots, he keeps his cool and, of course, the odd flinch when he shoots which makes it even more realistic. Chow also plays Ah Jong's sensitive side with cool and compassion. For example, he always seems to have strong contact with Sally Yip's character, constantly holding her hand, or hugging her to show his love. The role of Ah Jong is performed very well and this is what makes Chow Yun-Fat a fine actor.

Danny Lee plays brash, bold but caring Inspector Lee. I think Danny hasn't gotten the recognition for what he did in this film as he should have. In watching this film, I think his acting is great, he shows emotion and can even do action sequences as good as Chow. Danny is extremely underrated as an actor, methinks, and he should have more recognition. He portrays Lee, playing his patriotic & 'sense of justice' personal nicely and Lee and Chow bonded very well on this film, showing a sense of friendship and compassion for each other. Overall, Danny Lee is very good is The Killer, has great abilities, and just suits the film. The most prominent supporting players are Sally Yip Kenneth Tsang I don't feel really made a great impact to this film though.

Great film, you'll love it if you like John Woo's other films or Face/Off. Stray away if you don't like gun slinging films.

THE DVD:

A very clean 1:79:1 print, a little grain, but that's due to the original material, or rather, the damage that was on the original. Since Media Asia knew about Hong Kong Legends' great success, they have been giving Hong Kong Legends the worst print they have possible, thus, limiting on what they could do, like what they could do to newer titles like 2000 AD, Beast Cops & Iron Monkey. Also, a little cropping is there, but this is due to it being made Anamorphic.

In Dolby Digital 5.1 we get Cantonese and English dubbed audio options. The Cantonese track is perfect, dialogue is clear, and not too bassy like the previous releases were. The English dub is also clear but doesn't fit in with the mouth movements, but they were pretty good with the translation.

The disc comes with optional big, bold English subtitles, no problems with reading it at all, although some complain they are a little large. I didn't see any 'Westernised' translations and no hint of 'dubtitles' at all. Good all around. No Dutch subtitles on the disc this time, which is odd. Hmm.



As usual Hong Kong Legends have provided a healthy dose of supplements starting with the audio commentary track by ex-Impact editor Bey Logan. It's informative, but drags on unessential info like about him interview Chow Yun Fat for a magazine, I mean, Bey, if you're reading this, WE DON'T CARE! All we want to know is about Sally, CYF, Danny Lee and about the film itself, maybe about what other titles these same actors are going to be in on future Hong Kong Legends releases! Overall, this commentary is the worst one I've listened to by Bey Logan, so very disappointing.

5 deleted scenes that were on the Taiwanese print are included with mandarin audio and burned in English subtitles. The deleted scenes are quite short and I feel they were rightly cut out because they do drag. (Brorsson's note: Reports have been coming in that these scenes are wrongfully anamorphically encoded, resulting in a stretched image for widescreen TV owners. To correct this you apparently have to set your DVD player to non 16:9 mode.)

Below is a summary of the 5 scenes:

1) The first scene is where Lee is mirroring what Ah Jong did earlier on; smacking those people trying to steal Jenny's money outside the club and then taking her to her home. Ah Jong watches secretly. This scene lasts for about 5 minutes.

2) The second scene is featured right after the shootout at Ah Jong's apartment, and shows Li arriving just as Ah Jong is leaving. This lasts for 25 seconds.

3) The third scene would have been put right after Ah Jong takes Jenny away in the airport, and shows the couple driving to Brother Sei's safe-house. This scene lasts for 48 seconds.

4) The fourth scene shows Jenny and Ah Jong having breakfast at the house, just prior to the arrival of Brother Sei. This scene lasts for 47 seconds.

5) The final scene occurs right after Lee helps Jong remove the bullet from his arm. It shows the 'hit-team leader' arrive on the scene finding bandages left over from the surgery, giving the impression that he's closing in on the guys.



The interview section opens up with our leading lady Sally Yip (15 minutes). The interview has her talking in English about her first film and that she still had high school to do. She says she remembers John Woo respecting all his actors and actresses and what she would have done to make her acting of Jenny better. Sally also talks about how being blind can make all you senses, basically open up and & how Chow Yun-Fat is a practical joker. Very informative and Sally seems to be very engaged with the interview. Clips of The Killer and inserted into random parts of the interview, usually relevant to what she is talking about.

The Kenneth Tsang interview (15 minutes) has him talking about how he started out in Mandarin films, and then moved on to TV. He talks about how John Woo guides his actors without them knowing it and how you can see John is trying and experimenting with things. He also talks about how friendly John Woo is. Tsang seems to like talking about John Woo and his work. Seems very biased if I may say so! This interview lasts for also 15 minutes.

The final interview is with Academy Award winning cinematographer (for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Peter Pau (14 minutes). He explains how he became a director of photography (DP) and how he ended up being the temporary DP instead of Wong Wing-Hung. He talks about 'dolly' shots and how John wanted to make The Killer as romantic as possible instead of bloody killing. He also mentions about how they wanted to show the dragon boat scene and the scene where CYF/Lee sofa shot; how they used John Woo's special way of shooting that kind of scene without needing a motion picture camera. Quite interesting, although it drags on a little for me!

The Hong Kong Legends trailer for The Killer was much better then original Hong Kong cinema trailer, just because it made it look better then the film really is! No, I'm kidding! The trailers for other Hong Kong Legends releases are Red Wolf, My Lucky Stars, Project A Part 2, The Story of Ricky, The Young Master and The Avenging Fist.

Reviewed by Cecil Chan / Edited by Kenneth Brorsson