The Killer (1989)

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Movie
German title The killer
Original title Dip hyut sheung hung
Country of production Hong Kong
original language Cantonese
Publishing year 1989
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK unchecked
Rod
Director John Woo
script John Woo
production Tsui Hark
music Sally Yeh
Lowell Lowe
camera Wong Wing-Hang
cut David Wu
occupation

The Killer (Engl. Export title) or "blast Killer" (Reference title) or "The xue shuang xiong." (Chinese title, literally translated bloodshed two heroes ) is a Hong-Kong - thriller from 1989, in the Starring Chow Yun-Fat as the killer Jeff, Danny Lee as the cop Li and Sally Yeh as the singer Jennie. John Woo directed the film, which earned it great recognition in the West. The film was produced by Tsui Hark .

The Killer is considered a classic of the heroic bloodshed genre. Critics praised the film, not only for its stylized violence, but also for its themes such as honor, love and friendship, which, combined with the religious motif of salvation (not uncommon in the heroic bloodshed genre), is used to evoke great emotions to bring forth. The film also describes a higher morality that is above the law and leads the police officer to question his own motives.

A Hollywood remake with Richard Gere planned by Walter Hill never got beyond the script stage.

action

Jeff, a professional killer on his way to getting out, accidentally blinded singer Jennie while on a job . Plagued by guilt, he decides to fund Jennie for eye surgery. For this he has to accept one last assignment, an assassination attempt on the triad boss Tony Weng. The order comes from Weng's power-hungry nephew Johnny: The attack is carried out during the Dragon Boat Festival and the two police officers, Li and his partner Randy, start the investigation. When Li discovers the affectionate bond between Jenny and Jeff, he feels sympathy for the mysterious killer. Both are men from a bygone era, with a code of honor that seems out of date in the modern criminal world. The nefarious Johnny decides to kill Jeff instead of paying him - so the policeman and the killer end up facing a gang of trigger-happy triad thugs. In an abandoned church between fire, bullets and weeping icons, separated by the law, bound by bonds that none of them really understand, they face their fate.

Influences

  • For example, the plot is similar to that of the Hollywood film The Wonderful Power , from 1954, with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in the lead roles. In the film, Hudson plays a playboy who unintentionally blinds a young woman. Through newly found Christian ideals and compassion, which finally turns into love for the blind woman, he befriends the woman and tries to raise money for an eye operation without revealing his identity at all.
  • In The Killer also find elements of the cult film Le Samouraï (F 1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville , z. B. the piano player in Melville's film (a night club singer in Woo). Chow-Yun Fats role name "Jeff" in the English dubbed version was obviously named after Alain Delons "Jeff Costello".

Gross profit

Around 18 million Hong Kong dollars (approx. 1.6 million €) were earned in Hong Kong.

music

Several pieces of music were taken from other films, e.g. B. Red Heat and Hero - The Supercop , taken over.

  • "Russian Streets" Composer: James Horner from: Red Heat (1988)
  • "Victor Escapes" Composer: James Horner from: Red Heat (1988)
  • "Bus Station" Composer: James Horner from: Red Heat (1988)
  • "Breakout" Composer: David Michael Frank (performed as David Frank) from: Hero - Der Supercop (1988)

Possible remake

A Hollywood remake had been in development for many years, but various factors stalled development. The director and screenwriter Walter Hill wrote a script in which Richard Gere would have played the role of Jeff and Denzel Washington the role of Li, with the possibility of changing the police officer to a female character, played by Michelle Yeoh .

criticism

At the height of the shaft of the Hong Kong gangster film, John Woo himself with A Better Tomorrow was launched, was the killer brought to the cinema. Based on Jean Pierre Melville's gangster ballad The Ice Cold Angel , The Killer has become one of the most passionate and fascinating gangster films. Like A Better Tomorrow with Chow Yun-Fat, he opened the gates of the western world for the Hong Kong cinema. To many Western critics, films from Hong Kong appear too brutal, too melodramatic and too excessive, but these films have a certain atmosphere and an unmistakable style that also ensured success with viewers in the West. Western directors like Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese are now copying this style unabashedly. And stars from Asia have now also gained a foothold in Hollywood - for example Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Chow Yun-Fat. The story of The Killer is a story about the eternal questions of duty and conscience, guilt and atonement, honor and betrayal. Just as Sergio Leone once revived the western genre that had been declared dead, Woo breathed new life into the classic gangster film. But where sadness and cynicism predominate in Leone's films, Woo's gangster films are fundamentally optimistic. They show hope and the presence of human values.

“A stylized, visually amazing action drama in which the brilliant use of violence and shootings appears less as an end in itself, but rather as part of a multifaceted system of symbols. Despite all the harshness, an almost "romantic study" develops about guilt and atonement, love and renunciation, friendship and honor. "

- Lexicon of international film

Margin notes

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
  • Initially, production company Golden Princess didn't want to make the film, but Chow Yun-Fat (the studio's top star) insisted it be made. Chow Yun-Fat was also involved in Chu Kong taking on a role. Chu Kong had n't appeared in a movie since the 1970s and the studio was reluctant to engage him, but he and Chow Yun-Fat became good friends after working on a couple of television shows together. Chow Yun-Fat wanted Chu Kong to play Li, but Chu Kong found himself too old for the role. John Woo suggested they both bring in his friend Danny Lee , who once wanted to be a cop and had already made a name for himself as a performer of both cops and gangsters. Chow Yun-Fat had previously worked with Lee in a small film called The Executor in the early 1980s and Ringo Lam's gangster classic City on Fire , and agreed with John Woo that he would be perfect for the role of Li.
  • The scene in which Jeff Jennie's assailant beat up in the alley was difficult for Chow Yun-Fat because he abhorred violence. Woo wanted hard punches, but Chow Yun-Fat had trouble at first. After a few instructions from Woo, Chow Yun-Fat was able to muster the aggression necessary to make the scene more convincing. In fact, it became more than convincing when the stunt men asked Chow Yun-Fat to curb his punches a little after one of them was injured. Chow Yun-Fat was injured while filming the church shootout when a piece of cobblestone cut his face open and missed his eye by just a few inches. The wound can be seen during the scene in which Jeff and Li are talking before leaving the church.
  • All the guns in the movie are real. Since Hong Kong has very strict gun laws, they had to be imported separately and their use on the set was strictly monitored by the local administrations. The shootings in the streets of Hong Kong sparked complaints from residents, but since many police officers are fans of John Woo, they let him continue shooting - at least usually. During the shootout in the tram between Li and the gun pusher, people thought it was going to be a real robbery, which led to great chaos in the city area. Woo ended up having to speak to the chief himself before he was allowed to continue shooting.
  • After getting the permits, arranging the scene turned out to be difficult. Some of the footage during the attack on Tony Weng was shot under the pretense that Woo was making a documentary about the annual Dragon Boat Race , a major event in Hong Kong. John Woo shot most of the footage five months earlier (when neither crew nor cast funding was secured) and later brought in a small crew to fill in the gaps. Putting the scene together was very difficult for film editor David Wu , especially since Woo didn't use any storyboards . Eventually it ended up with Woo editing the scene himself, which took three weeks to complete. Woo, who is a huge fan of musicals , tried to stage the scene like a musical number or dance sequence, which went so far that it was cut to the beat of the background music.
  • Tsui Hark was extremely unhappy with the film and wanted to cut it completely. For example: Tsui Hark suggested that the film should focus on the cop rather than the killer. So he wanted the movie to begin with the scene that introduces the cop. The shooting in the restaurant, in which Sally Yeh goes blind because of the killer, should be cut completely and only appear later as a flashback in the film. Neither Woo nor his editor edited the film according to Tsui Hark's ideas, and due to a tight schedule ( The Killer premiered in Taiwan a short time later and some 100 cinemas had already ordered the film) Hark did not have the time to tinker with the film. The Killer was a huge hit during the Taiwanese premiere, which made Hark so angry that he (allegedly) tossed things out of his office window.
  • Jeff's and Lis Mexican standoff in Jennie's apartment was inspired by Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch ( 1969 ). Woo noted in the audio commentary on Fox Lorber's DVD that MAD magazine's " Spy & Spy " also played a role in constructing this scene.
  • Woo never used storyboards for the film's action scenes and instead improvised on set with the actors, stunt men, and the stunt coordinator. One reason is that Hong Kong is a very competitive film market and Woo wanted to protect his ideas from being stolen by other directors and also because he prefers to “work like an artist, like a painter. I want to show where my mood takes me ”(from the audio commentary on the Fox Lorber DVD). In fact, there was never a “final” script throughout the production of the film. This irritated producer Tsui Hark, who wanted to know exactly how high the budget for the film would be. Even when John Woo was planning a dialogue scene, he often changed things at the last minute. For example, most of the dialogue during Sydney and Jeff's confrontation in the apartment (when Sydney betrays Jeff) was improvised.
  • Sally Yeh was a popular pop star in Hong Kong - you can hear her own voice in Jennie's ballads in the film. She was so popular at the time of the film's making that she couldn't fully meet her schedule due to conflicts with her concerts. This resulted in a radical change to the plot in which both Jeff and Li would have been in love with Jennie, with going blind at the beginning of the film and telling the story through flashbacks and another ending where Jennie was on a plane to America with Jeff's money goes up to get her cornea transplant.
  • The rotation of the killer took 92 days and cost 14 million Hong Kong dollars (US $ 2 million). The shootout at the beach house lasted 28 days. Over 20,000 shots were fired here. The final shootout in the church took 36 days and over 40,000 shots.
  • In the scene where the killer arrives at the hospital with the injured girl, the hospital sign reads “Scared Heart”, although it should undoubtedly read “Sacred Heart”.
  • John Woo dedicated this film to Martin Scorsese .
  • The statue in the police station (seen before Li's interrogation by his superior after the tram shooting) is one of General Kwan , a soldier over a thousand years ago whose bravery and loyalty made him an idol for police officers and gangsters alike. The same statue was used again for the CID headquarters in Hard Boiled .
  • During the first release in America, the film was marketed as an over-the-top action / comedy film. This is most likely due to poor translation as well as poor subtitling.
  • 120 people are killed in The Killer .
  • Originally, Woo wanted to shoot a jazz number for the opening scene, with Jennie singing and Jeffrey playing the saxophone. However, producer Tsui Hark put him off. Woo then used this opening in Hard Boiled instead .

Quotes

“Only show this boom once in the cinema and every asshole wants one, that's a surefire thing. When that Hong Kong flick came out every nigger in the world wanted a 45 and they didn't want just one - they wanted two. Because everyone wanted to be THE KILLER. "

- Ordell Robbie ( Samuel L. Jackson ) from Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown

"A killer, a cop ... both represent completely different worlds. But inside both are very classy. Both have ideals that make a gentleman ... We all want to believe that there is justice, love, morality and beauty in the world. These thoughts inspired me to shoot THE KILLER. "

- John Woo

“One is not a real killer and the other is not a real cop. As is so often the case in real life, the right solution is hidden in the gray area. Action with depth ... that's John Woo's Heroic Bloodshed . "

- Manuel Juris

“The Killer [rocks] up and up, comic-like, always on the verge of tipping over into the ridiculous and parodic. But it doesn't tip over. The meandering between kitsch and action, meldodrama and blood opera works in a very peculiar way. "

- Christian Horn, Filmzentrale.com

Age rating and versions

All foreign versions are unabridged despite different information about the exact running time. However, there is a special long version on DVD in France and on video in Taiwan, which is around 20 minutes longer. Since the film has so far only been released in all of its 18 versions on DVD and video in Germany and, due to its excessive portrayal of violence, was indexed by the Federal Examination Office for Media Harmful to Young People when it was released, the film is shortened by 25 minutes, except for one FSK-16 version, almost impossible to find due to the advertising ban. Only one old video tape, which is the only one with a seal of the FSK (18), which was denied to all other versions and which received a Spio / JK seal for it, is shortened by 154 seconds with 41 cuts. The film was unindexed after 25 years in November 2015. A re-examination by the FSK is still pending.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

The plot, criticism, quotations, marginal notes are taken from the bonus material text booklet attached to the DVD: Laser Paradise (Special Edition).

  1. ↑ see review
  2. ↑ The Killer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used