John Woo Remakes a Classic for Peacock with Omar Sy

When it was first released in the United States in 1990, John Woo’s assassination film The Killer The film was like a shot (or rather, several thousand shots) to the system. With action scenes choreographed like pyrotechnic ballets and a romantic, over-the-top approach to love and violence that utilized slow motion, dissolves, and a seemingly endless supply of flying doves, Woo’s take on the genre would help transform it over the next decade—whether in blockbusters or in the work of a huge fan like Quentin Tarantino.

The director’s subsequent career, both in Hollywood and in his hometown of Hong Kong, has had its ups and downs (Hard boiled, Face/Off) and stockings (Paycheck). But everyone who made action movies in his wake still owes him a debt. His best films were bouts of poetic style over substance, transforming what was generally considered a dirty and forgettable B-movie genre into a case of high-level cinematic art, guns and blood included.

The original The Killerin which Chow Yun-Fat plays a scared hitman, was totally over the top but also perfect in its own right. Why, then, did Woo decide to remake it in English (and a little bit in French) more than three decades later?

One reason, if this well-executed but rather bland Peacock original is any indication, may have been the desire to set the story in Paris – and Woo definitely exploits the City of Lights to its fullest here. Not since Tom Cruise has the French capital been beaten Mission Impossible: Fallout We’ve seen so many chases, fights and shootouts take place in breathtaking Parisian settings, from the banks of the Seine to every rooftop offering perfect vantage points for scenes of shootouts and mayhem.

As film buffs and Woo fans may know, the city was also the setting for Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 hitman masterpiece. The Samuraiwhich starred the late Alain Delon and was the main inspiration for the first The Killer. Delon and Chow-Yun Fat both play impeccably dressed assassins named Jeff (spelled with an “f” in the French film), who expresses himself much better with bullets than with words, and who is on the run from both local authorities and the bad guys who hired him.

Woo, this time working with veterinary writer Brian Helgeland and 10 Cloverfield Lane Writers Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken keep the original model more or less intact, although with some interesting changes. Jeff is now Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), a gun-wielding, katana-wielding femme fatale from the novel…