There are doves, a church and a blinded club singer, but beyond these cosmetic similarities, little of Woo’s seminal bullet ballet remains.
The Killer is often credited with bringing Woo to Hollywood’s attention, and an English-language remake was swiftly put into development. Studios were eager to profit from the original’s stellar reputation, but were apparently wary that the film’s overwrought tale of heroic bloodshed might come off as homoerotic to Western audiences.
The decision was made, therefore, to gender-flip one of the protagonists, since which time everyone from Michelle Yeoh to Lupita Nyong’o has been considered to remedy this frankly non-existent issue.
Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy in a still from The Killer.
The Chow Yun-fat role now falls to Nathalie Emmanuel, who is horribly miscast as Zee, a notorious assassin known to the French authorities as the “Queen of the Dead”.
The British actress may have appeared in four Fast and Furious films, but she lacks the physicality the role demands, and looks more like a starlet with two weeks’ combat training than a highly skilled killer with an unwavering code of honour.
It is this code that is challenged by her handler (Sam Worthington, with a dodgy Irish accent), after a job goes awry and a young American singer (Diana Silvers) is left blinded and in hospital.
French actor Omar Sy (Intouchables) fares better as Sey, the cop on Zee’s trail, and thankfully the script avoids any suggestion of romance between them. Sadly, it also fails to evoke the mutual respect that drove Chow and Danny Lee Sau-yin’s characters to fight side by side in the original.
Omar Sy in a still from The Killer. Photo: Thibault Grabherr/Universal Pictures International
Most disappointing is Woo’s anonymous direction. Perhaps his influence has been so overwhelming that today all action films look like his work.
More likely, at 78 years old he has simply lost his touch. The Killer feels cheap, sluggish and often tedious, devoid of Woo’s trademark kinetic visuals and outrageous stunt work.
Debuting exclusively on Peacock but lacking the star power and extravagant spectacle to compete in an already overcrowded digital landscape, the film seems condemned to die a quick death.
The Killer is streaming on Peacock in the United States.
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