Zee is a feared contract killer known as "the Queen of the Dead," but when she refuses to murder a young blind woman, she finds herself hunted both by criminal colleagues and a determined police detective.
첩혈쌍웅, 喋血双雄美版, 新喋血双雄, 喋血雌雄, آدمکش, قاتل, 喋血雙雄(2024), John Woo's The Killer, 더 킬러: 죽음의 여왕, 喋血双雄, הרוצחת, Наёмный убийца, 喋血雙雄, Žudikas, 勒奇勒, Кілер, Убиецът, Nữ Hoàng Tử Thần, Ubojica, ザ・キラー ジョン・ウー/暗殺者の挽歌, მკვლელი, สวยกล้าบ้าระห่ำ
Netherlands16 
South Korea19 
American Samoa 
Guam 
Northern Mariana Islands 
Puerto RicoR 
US Virgin IslandsR 
USAR 
AustraliaMA 15+ 
Brazil16 Puerto RicoR US Virgin IslandsR USAR 
MexicoB-15 
Israel 
16 
UK AustraliaMA 15+ 12 UK UK American Samoa Australia Brazil Guam Israel Mexico Netherlands Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico South Korea UK US Virgin Islands USA
Is it as good as the original? Of course not. Does it look like an ugly cheap streaming movie? Unfortunately yes. Does it have the main character wearing a custom dress designed to conceal the pieces of a carbon fiber samurai sword that she then assembles and uses to fuck up a bunch of dudes? Also yes, and that matters more
It’s been more than 30 years since John Woo first came to Hollywood, and it often feels like he’s been looking for a way back to Hong Kong ever since — or at least a way back to the iconic action filmmaker he was when he worked there in the ’80s and early ’90s. Orgiastically blending the muted cool of a Jean-Pierre Melville neo-noir with the explosive melodrama of a Martin Scorsese crime epic and the florid grandiosity of a Chinese opera, Woo’s elevated style clashed with the meat-and-potatoes ethos of American blockbusters (“Face/Off” endures as a crucial exception, in large part because its story was as heightened as the way that Woo chose to tell it). The same ecstasy…
This was never gonna be another smoldering violent romantic opera masterpiece. It's got more of a caper-ish ONCE A THIEF tone. Clearly Woo reflecting on his work and choosing a more hopeful direction. The action is hardly his best but I preferred it to that of SILENT NIGHT (and the movie overall as well).
Look I got a female John Woo hero, I was primed to enjoy this - yes it suffers stacked up to the original, a cosmic cop/killer epic that Woo wrote himself compared to a mimicked/modernized version written by others. Duh! It’s more generic but still competently written, there’s lots to appreciate about the new character dynamics and of course how Woo continues to navigate the digital landscape. Teeming with innovative transitions and camera movements, in classic Woo fashion there’s an extended shootout finale that is to die for. The doves! The abandoned church! The SWORD! Nathalie Emmanuel is so badass and Omar Sy is a great compliment. Had a very good time.
Nothing about this is new, but Hollywood makes so few genuinely gritty thrillers these days that it feels novel anyway. The world did not need a remake of The Killer, and it’s possible that if this movie was directed by anyone other than John Woo, it would feel like a desecration of a masterpiece. In Woo’s hands, the material works all over again. I don’t necessarily need to see someone else’s copy of the Mona Lisa, but if you told me they discovered another Mona Lisa that da Vinci painted 30 years after the first one, I’d probably want to take a look at that one too.
Full review at ScreenCrush.
While I'm not sure this would crack the top 10 of John Woos filmography, it's still nice to see the action master has a little left in his tank. It's visions are grandiose even when it's execution isn't, but bullets fly fast and often, Woos trademark operatic style is on full display and Nathalie Emmanuel and Omay Sy make a great team. The weakest link is clearly the villain, which keeps the film from ever obtaining loftier heights, but the fact remains that this is his best film in 22 years. For someone like me who grew up on his Hong Kong films and thought his best days were long in the past, The Killer is something to rejoice over.
i tried my best to stump for silent night, which was bad but at least achieved a sort of minimalist purity with its central gimmick, yet you never get out of this life without paying the price for your immoderation, and now we're here: john woo resembling the imitators of his imitations, le samourai and breathless references uneasily rubbing shoulders with luc besson and chad stahelski; a film which, without woo's name attached, wouldn't be taken seriously at all -- yet his name is attached, and that reckoning must take place -- 1989's tragedy not quite turned into 2024's farce, but as the movie itself puts it, a 'postmodern primitivism', a simplistic remake which has had all the shades and…
Pure decadent auteur cinema. The pitch is very clear: instead of a tale emotional purge of past sins, one of rebirth, and it is easy to get how this can be a different take, but there is very little emotional pull behind it, so the movie is skillfully executed hall of mirrors that both needs the memories of the early movie to achieve meaning and can do little but suffer from it. The dance between Emmanuel and Sy exists on the needs of the plot more than any twisted attachment. The French setting is interesting as it clearly animated Woo (certainly more than the American one from Silent Night), but there is also an Europudding feel to it. The action…
Idk guys I think this John Woo guy might have a bright future in action cinema.
Fascinated by this arbitrarily deciding when it wants John Woo to go god mode and when it wants to look like streaming dog ass
Was never gonna be the original (what is?) but I adored it, warts and all. John Woo saw that Hollywood couldn’t crack the long-gestating remake of his masterpiece and said “ok I’ll make it like you would. But better.” And he did.
The original drips with romantic nihilism. A world of violence, so beautiful it hurts. This one, with all its gloss and goofiness, feels hopeful. An answer to a question many filmmakers seem to ask themselves in their last act: what you’ve left behind did, in fact, matter. The Killer, take 2, feels like John Woo looking at today’s action landscape, largely made for streaming, and gift wrapping the shiniest version possible. Beneath the veneer are echoes of a career spent defining the world we live in now. Reminded me a ton of Matrix Resurrections.
Movie rules. Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy should be in everything together.
“She does not look like someone who just killed four men with a samurai sword.”
THE KILLER (2024, streaming on Peacock) is John Woo’s best American-made movie since 1997’s FACE/OFF. It not only has multiple clever homages to the classic 1989 original, but completely reimagines the story to flesh out each of the major characters.
Every John Woo signature move is here, and Woo proves he’s still one of the greatest when it comes to great action filmmaking. I loved it and I’m happy it exists!
