Hong Kong Cinema Classics: The Killer (1989) 4K Restoration
Director: John Woo Run Time: 111 min. Rating: NR
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese with English subtitles
Screening as part of Hong Kong Cinema Classics, eleven rarely-screened, action-packed films from The Golden Princess Catalog. Only at Gateway Film Center in Columbus, Ohio this September 2025.
About the film:
A Hong Kong hitman accidentally blinds an innocent woman during a hit. He is determined to get her surgery to help her regain her sight but he needs to complete one more hit first. He completes the job but then is ambushed as he tries to escape: someone wants him dead. Meanwhile a resourceful, unorthodox police detective is hot on his trail.
About the filmmaker:
John Woo is a seminal Hong Kong film director celebrated as a pioneer of the “heroic bloodshed” genre. He rose to international acclaim through stylized, operatic action films like A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992), renowned for their choreographed “bullet ballet,” dramatic emphasis on brotherhood, and frequent use of slow motion.
His transition to Hollywood in the early 1990s produced major studio releases such as Face/Off (1997) and Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), cementing his global influence on modern action cinema.
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