UPDATE: So, I finally saw “The Killer” (2024) and, for the life of me, I still can’t quite figure out why Woo would want to remake his own film. It plays like a very rushed product, involving an inferior mise-en-scene at almost every level. There’s none of the invigorating filmmaking of the original. Instead, it feels like one of those cheaply rendered, mediocre, straight-to-streaming action flicks Netflix seems to dole out every few weeks.
EARLIER: A few years ago, it was announced that John Woo would remake his best film, the 1989 action classic “The Killer.” It couldn’t be. Why would Woo want to mess with perfection? The film then began production last year in Paris …
The French remake, starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy, is actually now available to stream on Peacock. No theatrical release for this one. The reviews have so far been mixed; 57% on Rotten Tomatoes and 59 on Metacritic.
This isn’t the first time a filmmaker has decided to remake his own film in a different language. The one prominent example I keep thinking of is Michael Haneke remaking “Funny Games,” 20 years later, with English speaking actors.
I’m not entirely sure how close to the original Woo’s 2024 “The Killer” will be, I’ll only be watching it tonight, but it seems to share a fairly similar plot to the original; an assassin who takes on one more assignment to help pay for the surgery of a singer he accidentally blinded. The remake was scripted by Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (“L.A. Confidential,” “Mystic River”)
Last year, Woo released “Silent Night” an action-driven story, shot with no dialogue and only told visually with only music accompanying the drama. It wasn’t necessarily the action comeback Woo fans were expecting, but there were some shades of his former self in that film.
Woo, one of the best and most successful action directors of the ‘80s and ‘90s, made a name for himself with Hong Kong classics such as “The Killer,” “Hard Boiled” and “A Better Tomorrow.” Then Hollywood came calling in the early ‘90s and results were very mixed; his best one was 1997’s “Face/Off,” but he bombed hard with “Mission: Impossible II” “Windtalkers,” and “Paycheck.”
Woo has been mostly dabbling in Asian cinema these last twenty or so years, he’s only released three films during that time frame, including 2008’s “Red Cliff.”