WHEN HONG KONG filmmaker John Woo described his 1986 film A Better Tomorrow, he said, “It’s not a gangster movie. It’s a film about chivalry, about honour, but set in the modern world. I want to teach the new generation: ‘What is friendship? What is brotherhood? What we have lost. What we have to get back…’” This statement would prove to be Woo’s credo, one perfectly expressed in his 1989 film The Killer.