THE EMPIRE MASTERPIECE
The Killer
JOHN WOO’S ICONIC BALLET OF BLOOD
WORDS PRISCILLA PAGE
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.
It’s a philosophy shaped by Woo’s childhood, when the filmmaker witnessed extraordinary violence. In 1967 alone, there were two riots in Hong Kong — he watched people die in front of his door. Every day, he encountered gangs on his way home. The church and the cinema became his sanctuary. These experiences formed both his staunchly pacifist worldview and his work. In The Killer, as in all Woo’s films, violence becomes something transcendent, a purifying force — it’s an intrinsic part of a corrupt world, but it’s also necessary to exorcise evil and redeem our heroes.